Financial Peace

I had to write in detail our journey with our financial peace lifegroup. For those who aren't sure on what this means our church Freedom House offers life groups throughout the year. This is a way to stay connected despite the fact that we are a larger church. In fact, this is what keeps our church so strong.

As a couple we've been wanting to take Financial Peace since we started Freedom House. It just never happened. It was either on a day that didn't work or their wasn't a child care. Child care was a must for us. When life group launch happened and we saw that not only was FPU going to be on a Monday (my hubby's only scheduled day off) but that it was going to offer child care we knew God was telling us to take it. 

So we did. Going into the class I personally was mortified. I remember walking up to Shelley (one of the teachers of the class) and saying, "I have such a bad feeling. Such fear." We had tried doing Dave's program before and had even gotten our emergency fund when murphy hit. We had to use it and just stopped. We thought, "If we've failed once how can we do it again?"

She and her husband Ruel were some of the best life group leaders I've ever had. The class to date, was my favorite life group. They were so encouraging and said, "Martino's, YOU CAN DO THIS." The class was only 9 weeks and they talked about this snapshot of before and after and all I could think of is, "How much can change in 9 weeks?"

The first four weeks were havoc. We were hit hard financially. It was literally frustrating that we had finally given our ALL regarding finances and things seemed to be getting worse. You see though, things weren't getting worse because God didn't love us, things were difficult because He was growing us. He wanted us to solely trust Him so that as we moved through each step we would move into a new level of trust regarding our finances. Tony and I both were pretty uneducated in how to handle finances properly and how to handle them scripturally which is one of the biggest goals we had for ourselves...becoming educated.

So we go through the first four weeks, faithful. God gave us little things here and there to show us that He was seeing what we were doing. A Starbucks gift card here, another visa gift card there, God is so faithful. Then literally overnight our finances started to change. Sometimes miracles take time and we have to wait patiently, other times they are thrown at us in grace. God was so graceful to us. In the course of taking BACK our finances Tony received a promotion, an unexpected bonus at work, I started a business, and we went from living paycheck to paycheck to not running out of money. This change only really took half the class so a little less than five weeks.

Dave's program works. But we would not have had the passion and fire if it weren't for such diligent leaders like Shelley and Ruel. We wouldn't have strength and accountability if it weren't for friends like Amber and Terrel and all the other FPU rock stars that attended life group with us. We started with no cash savings, no plan, and no hope.

We ended with an emergency fund, FUNDED. With A PLAN. With HOPE and purpose. We made two big goals (one to buy a house in cash!) and believe that as we grow in trust, as we grow in these baby steps that God will bless us. Ultimately our biggest goal is to be BIG GIVERS.

If you have never taken a life group or have never heard of financial peace I recommend checking it out! Click here for more information!

Be Blessed,