Trading My Debt For Peace

God used Leslie Sweet to change my family’s lives.  Here’s our story.   While most are feeling the effects of a bad economy, our family is as well.  Since I’ve always been the one “in charge” of making sure our bills were paid, I was especially feeling overwhelmed by trying to figure out how to do so.   Actually, “overwhelmed” seems like an understatement of how I was really feeling.  I was becoming “obsessed” and “constantly worried” about the lack of money to pay our bills.  I started praying about our situation and almost, if not every time, the Lord would bring Leslie to mind.  But in my pride, there was no way I was going to go to my niece, who was much younger than me, and a much better financial planner, and reveal to her my daily struggles with our finances.  That would have been way to embarrassing.    But, because the Lord loves his children more than any of us can comprehend, He kept on pressing me to call Leslie.  Now, I’ve been serving the Lord for a very long time, and I know that when He’s speaking to my heart to do something, it’s ALWAYS in my best interest to do it.  So, I called Leslie and told her we needed her help.  The peace I had after I made that call told me I’d made the right decision.  And from that day forward, I knew the Lord would use Leslie’s talents to not only help us with our finances, but to bring glory to Him.  It’s always about Him!!! 

After my husband and I spent a few months with Leslie, it completely turned our financial situation around.  Do we still struggle from time to time?  Absolutely.  And I’ll admit there were some times that I felt mad because I couldn’t afford the things I thought I deserved after working all these years.  But again the Lord, thru Leslie, taught me that life is not about material things.  And when I finally accepted that, the peace that I now have on a daily basis, doesn’t even compare to any material thing I could buy.  When I started focusing on the blessings in my life, spending time with my family, friends, good health, etc., the material things didn’t even matter anymore.  There are many times I still choose not to buy something I think I’d like to have, simply because I choose to have peace of mind over being in debt.  It’s worth so much more to me.

Our finances aren’t always perfect because “life happens”.  But the big difference is, because of Leslie’s guidance, we now have a financial plan and goals. And we’ve learned how to rethink about the way we handle our money.

Leslie Sweet is a very talented financial planner.  What stands out most to me about her is the fact that she lives what she teaches.  And she is living proof that taking responsibility for the money God has blessed us with is important and has many good returns.

Even though we don’t meet with Leslie anymore, God still uses her by bringing her to mind whenever I’m making a financial decision and I remember all that she’s taught us and how far we’ve come.

If you are struggling with finances, I would highly recommend you contact Leslie.  Not because she’s my niece, but because she could potentially change your life.  I know she changed ours!
 

Why is my lender making this so hard on me?

Our home mortgage loan was recently sold to a new lender.  Last week I got online to create an account so that I could make the payment – and that’s when the frustrations began. 

Thursday Aug 29^th

I created an account on their website, but then couldn’t find a way to make my mortgage payment without using a credit card issued by their bank, and I didn’t want to do that.  I finally found the separate mortgage link that I had to create an additional online account for.  Since it was late that night and I was tired, I decided not to make the payment then because I was lazy and didn’t want to walk across the house to get the checkbook…besides, I wrote down all my passwords and such.

Friday Aug 30^th

The next day I got back online to make my payment.  I was able to log in and see my account.  I was then able to select the home mortgage link which would allow me to make my payment.  Unfortunately, I could NOT get in to that part of the site.  In fact, I tried so many times that it locked me out of the system.  I then went through the necessary steps to reset my password, and by the time all this was done, I needed to be off to take care of other things, but I had my password reset and made sure I had it written down.

Saturday, Sunday, Monday – Labor Day

Tuesday Sept 3^rd
I try to make the payment again and the same thing happens – I can’t get into the mortgage side of the site.  So I call the number…you know, the “help-line” where you never get talk to a person, nor can you ever find what you’re looking for…yea, I did that.  Then I decided I would just pay the thing over the phone – until I learned that there was a $15 fee to do so.  Uuuhhhh, no! – Especially since I had spent close to 2 hours trying to get this done over the past few days.

Wednesday, Sept 4^th

I take my payment  to the post office and mail it certified mail so that I’ll know that they got it.  It still cost me $3.56 but I decided this was the best option – the best and cheapest way to PROVE that I made my payment, and that I did so “on time.”

This whole thing made me so frustrated.  I mean, there I was, doing the right thing, I even tried paying it EARLY.  I start thinking things like “why does this have to happen right now?” and “It’s not like I don’t have a million other things to get done” and “this is so unfair!”  and “why is this happening to me?”  and many other forms of “waaa waaa waaa” 

And then I remember…this isn’t “happening to me.”  This is not a random test of life.  This is not an attack of the enemy.  This is merely a consequence of a choice we made.  We chose to go into debt to live in our home.  We know that God said that the borrower becomes the lender’s slave.  We are slave to our mortgage lender.  Sometimes the consequences of our choices cause extra stress in our lives.  God said we would become slaves if we went into debt.  We chose debt.  We chose the consequences – in this case, the extra stress.

I’m not saying we should have waited until we had enough cash to pay for this house before we bought it – that is a lot of money – I’m just saying we need to accept responsibility for the consequences of our choices.  I’m saying that I need to shut up and stop complaining that my lender isn’t fair.  I need to put my big girl pants on and deal with it, and if we want to avoid this stress in the future, then we will get out of debt.