Letting Go of Church Attendance Guilt

Sierra (8... just days before her 9th birthday)

Letting go of guilt has been something that I have had to do since having a larger than average family.  This especially applies to church.  Of all the things we should not be beating ourselves up about it is keeping tally of how many services we attend at church.  God knows our heart! 

I love to attend church.  I desire to be there.  I treasure my time their amongst other believers worshiping God.  But sometimes we make church complicated.  The Bible says to "remember the Sabbath".  That is God's Word and that is good enough for me.  I want to be clear... this is not a post about how you should not feel guilty about not attending church.  It is about not feeling guilty if you can not attend every church event that goes on. 

I really had to come to terms with this when I was pregnant with my third child and my husband was working by day and attending his college Masters program by night.  We used to attend church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and special events when we could.  Sadly, we even kind of thought we were extra special because we made it back to church on Sunday nights to fill our pew.  I actually remember feeling a kind of pride that we attend Sunday nights when most people did not.  Being prideful is not a good quality.  

As our family has grown and there have been more children with more illness or more things that need to be attended to on the weekends I have had to let go of the guilt.  My main goal is to "remember the Sabbath" by attending Sunday School and Worship Service on Sundays.  We no longer attend Sunday nights because we simply run out of energy trying to make it all happen.  We take our children to Wednesday night services for children's choir and classes.  We sometimes attend special Bible studies on those nights, also.  But this is what our Sundays look like now:

• By 9:40 am:  Arise, dress for church, eat breakfast and out the door
•  9:45 am - 12:30 pm:  Sunday School and Worship Service
• 12:30 pm - on:  Home for lunch and time with the family
• 5:00 - 6:00 pm:  My husband goes back to the church to lead a Youth Drama class
• 6:00 pm: Dinner
• 6:00 -8:30:  Family time, bathes, and bedtimes for the kids

Now, this is what our days would look like if we went to Sunday night servie:

• By 9:40 am:  Arise, dress for church, eat breakfast and out the door
•  9:45 am - 12:30 pm:  Sunday School and Worship Service
• 12:30 pm - on:  Home for lunch and time with the family
• 5:00 - 6:00 pm:  My husband goes back to the church to lead a Youth Drama class
• 6:00 - 730 pm:  Evening church
• 7:30 - 8:00 pm: Quick Dinner (and I don't know when I would cook it.  I guess that would be during our afternoon family time)
• 8:00 -8:30:  Family time, bathes, and bedtimes for the kids

 I know that could be done... but I don't want to do all that.  That is a recipe for stress and discord.  We would be just "attending" church because we feel we "should" and I am pretty sure we would lose our joy for it.  I am just being honest.  And again I will say that the Bible says to "remember the Sabbath".  Does that mean we spend 2 hours at church?  5 hours?  What if we just stayed there the whole day?  Would we be "remembering the Sabbath" day more effectively.  I don't think so.  With our current Sunday schedule we are there about 2 hours and 45 minutes.  There was a time that I would have felt guilty, but I just don't anymore. 

And there are different seasons of life.  Right now I am even co-teaching 7-8th grade girls Sunday School for this year.  Cody is doing the Youth Drama.  Sometimes we help out in different children's classes or wherever we are needed.  We have hosted Bible Study in our home.  We go to Youth events and other special activities.  We have less home commitment in some areas this year and have opted out of some other activities allowing us to do this.  Last year we did not have as many church commitments.  This is an ever-changing thing.  We do what we can, when we can.  And I am content with that.

So, that is a little peek into how our "little" family does church attendance.... guilt free.  And I will say that my guilt has been being testing this year.  There are more events that I am being asked to attend or being somewhat pressured to attend.  Maybe I should feel guilty, but... I just don't.  You see I don't answer to the people around me (even though I certainly would not want to be a "stumbling block").  I answer to God.  

So, I wonder... have you let go of church attendance guilt?  

 

Dinner Out with Five Kids! You MUST be CraZy!!!

A few weeks back my husband and I were checking out at a store and I was casually talking to the cashier.  I mentioned that we were about to go out to eat with our five kids.  The cashier blurted out laughingly, "I wouldn't go anywhere with five kids!"  I really was not offended and she was not saying it ugly like it might seem.  That is our culture and I get that.

Fortunately, not everyone shares this cashier's view.  We were at a restaurant a few days ago and a lady that we both have met came up to our table and started a brief conversation.  She was there with her two children and she was saying how much she loved going out to eat with her children.  We briefly discussed the above cashier encounter and laughed candidly and both agreed that it is amazing how people don't want to take their children to restaurants, yet don't seem to understand why those children have no idea how to behave when they take them out to eat.  What better way is there to train children, but by putting them in the situation.

So, that is why we take FIVE kids out to dinner! 

We take them because we want to share that time with them, also.  I can not imagine feeding my kids some junky meal and heading out to their favorite restaurant without them.  I am not saying this is wrong, but rather that I would not enjoy a meal they would love without them.  Now, I can say that a little over a year ago we were out of town and took them to Bucca Di Peppo (sp?) and they did not have an appreciation for the meal.  About $75 later I told Cody that if we ever came back there to eat it would be without the kids simply because that is too much money to spend on a dinner that was not enjoyed.  Now, that is an example of a circumstance that if it were an option I would totally leave them out.  :)  

And the next question I know people wonder is how do we AFFORD to take five kids out to eat.  There are several things we do:

• We don't make extravagant purchases.  We don't have all the big toys that many people have.  Our cars are over 10 years old and in all honesty our parents have gifted some of that to us... not because we wanted them to.  For whatever reason they wanted to.  We still would be fine in that area, but these gifts or partial gifts had made other expenses more manageable.  So, they have been a blessing in more than one way.  And it has allowed us to have extra money to purchase our shuttle bus that we use for travel.
• I cook from scratch and buy very little packaged food. 
• Dining out is our biggest "splurge" in life.  Other people get their hair done or a pedicure or go shopping, etc..  I skip all that and go out to eat with my family.
• We also choose frugal ways to dine.  That may mean that we go to places like CiCi's Pizza (under $30); if we are on the go we grab Little Caesar's Pizza ($10-15 for 2-3 pizzas); we go to Tuesday buffet at Pizza Hut where kids eat free with adults (around $20); we used to go to Monday night at Johnny Carino's (dinner special... we could eat and tip $6 for about $22); we look for Tuesday night sales like Casa Ole'  has 99 cent kid meals including a drink (usually $40 because we get cheese dip... we could go for about $30); We don't order anything other than water unless it is included in the cost of the meal; We don't do happy meal deal types of things and in fact, we don't even order fries for every child.  We order what they eat and in and over indulgent fast food culture we find that our kids get full on a small burger, a few fries, and water and if necessary we buy them an extra burger if they are really hungry for it.
• Often, if we know that we are going to be gone for a whole day or vacation, we will pick-up bread and snacks and have a picnic going down the road and this allows for splurging on meals at other times on the excursion.

 Lunch with special friends at a special place... The American Girl Store's Bistro in Houston, Texas.

 And so... that is how it is done in our "little" family!  What tips do you have to share?

Affording the Dream House with a Growing Family

As a family of seven people often wonder how we afford such a big home.  Some rare few will actually ask.  Ha!  The answer:  sacrifice.  It's simple really.... it's always been about financial wisdom and lots of sacrifice.

But I have to start a little further back.... like when I was a child.  My parents were raised poor and they did not want to raise their family poor.  They made some financial mistakes early in their marriage, had to get a consolidation loan, and they actually learned from that lesson.  They taught me and my brother by example how to manage money wisely.  Basically, we were taught exactly what Dave Ramsey teaches, so if you need in depth advise you might want to read some of his books, etc..  The main principle is don't spend what you don't have to spend and live withing YOUR means.  If you can't afford to buy snacks at the convenience store then, don't do it.  Simple.

So, back to the house.... I met my husband when we were both 19.  I was working at McDonald's and shortly after we started seeing each other I got a waitressing job.  I started building a house on my parent's property.  It was a cottage style house and was about the size of a small apartment (24'x26' with a 6' porch across the whole front).  I paid my car insurance, gas, and such expenses, and kept out about $20 each weekend for spending money and I put everything else back into the building fund.  It took three years to complete the house, but when it was done it was completely paid for.  I moved in  and shortly after became engaged to Cody and I lived there a year alone until we married and he moved in.  We lived there for several years and then, decided to purchase our own land and have the house moved. 

We had a plan to add on to the house, but my dad had emergency heart surgery and we decided that it would be best to sell the house and land and move.  We had our first child while living there at which point I stopped working outside the home.  That brought us to the location we are at today.  We sold the house and land for $40,000 and paid off the remaining balance on our land and put $30,000 cash down on our home.  Our home was foreclosure home that had been used as a rent house for few years with some damage that needed repaired.  We took the advice of our realtor and financed the house for 30 years to make sure we did not get in a financial bind.  I am so glad we listened to her because we had no idea what the utilities would be like in a 3500 square feet home that was over 100 years old.  Remember the other house was only 624 square feet of living space.  The 30 year loan allowed us to have payments really low and pay extra when we could.  A whole lot of income tax return money went towards extra payments when most of our friends were taking extravagant vacations.  We still went of vacations, but we chose frugal options and we had as much fun as anyone else was.

At some point I convinced my husband we were throwing money away on finance charges on our mortgage by showing him the statements showing how much had gone to finance charges.  This was the moment my husband got on board with frugal living.  We set a goal at that point to pay off the house in three years and we did it.  Mostly we paid an extra $10-100 on payments (which makes a huge difference) and started putting most of our income tax report into our mortgage.  We paid the house off in the 11th year of a 30 year mortgage!!!!!!

This was an amazing feat because of several reasons:

• I am a stay-at-home mom.
• My husband was a teacher.
• My husband quit his job at one point to try another career then, returned to teaching. 
• My husband went back to school to get his Masters degree.
• We added four more children to the family (and lost two).
• I had wrist surgery and Cody had surgery for staph infection.  There were probably other medical expenses, but I don't remember really.   ;)
•  After three years of applying for administration jobs Cody got an Assistant Principal job shortly before we paid off the mortgage.
• We also have been doing renovations since we moved in this house... some big, some small.  Some were as simple as a can of paint while others included adding a fireplace or finishing out the walls of half the upstairs.  We have replaced flooring at points where you could see the dirt ground below even.  Been we have chose wisely where to spend our money and where we could cut cost.
• And we continued to vacation a couple times a year.  {Hallelujah!!}

 So, it has all been sacrifice.  And I believe with all my heart that God honors sacrifice and He has filled in all the gaps.  When the numbers on paper did not make sense God made a way for all of our heart's desires.  He has taken care of us for that I am certain. 

Blogging Direction and Faithfulness

I have been thinking about my blog and my lack of faithfulness to it, as well as, the direction of it.  This blog has always been very random and I really like it that way, but in the last couple of years I have begun to think I might need to focus it in a bit more.  And it must be addressed that I obviously lack faithfulness to it.  You see I have a problem when I am doing things.... whatever it may be I get fully absorbed in it and I can tell you I have a pretty important mission here at home.  When I get absorbed in things that are taking away from my real mission of rearing my children and keeping my home I have to reevaluate and obviously blogging is not on the top of the list of important goals.  But I still desire to have the blog and maintain it for various reasons:... the share and help others as I have gained so much wisdom and knowledge from other bloggers; to have a sort of scrapbook of our lives; and as a release of my thoughts because telling your story is sometimes the best way to move on to the next thing in life.  

So, as I sit here pondering as I listen to the dryer spinning away, and watching out the window as my three littlest ones jump on the trampoline like a bunch of wild monkeys, and relish in the quietness of my two oldest working away on school I thought I would take a moment to consider the direction of this blog.  

I think I will keep it rather random, but I think I want to make a point to start posting shorter posts that I can do more often and I want to focus on how we make it all work with our "little" family.  And yes, I know most people don't see a family of seven as little, but I still do somehow.  I always refer to us as a "larger than average" family because I really don't think of us as a large family just yet.  People are always wondering how we afford all these kids, a nice large home, groceries, etc..  They wonder how we go to the store or dinner out... or sadly why we would even want to... and what on earth we we do on vacation that we can afford (or keep our sanity) taking along five kids.  All these things are just a part of everyday life for me and we "just do it"... you just do what you have to do and I don't think I think about how weird or interesting that is to other people too much, but people ask questions that make me realize they really are interested and at a stage in life that I really feel open to sharing some insight.  So, this is my new direction... and I will continue the other random posts, as well...just because it's my blog and I can.  Hehehehhee!  And I will try to be faithful.  Have a blessed day!