Robbie and Jen - 1st day of diagnosis January 12, 2009
January 12, 2012 marked our 3 year anniversary when our lives changed forever. It was the day our Robbie was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was 7 years old. A day that we celebrate as it was a major turning point in our lives…one that turned out to be a huge blessing to our whole family, however, one of those blessings that didn’t “feel” like a blessing at the time.
Before this day, life is overall pretty darn awesome as I had just finished up completing my first Ironman Triathlon 2 months earlier (our story on that journey is now available in our newest book Living Beyond Awesome which dipped into the Top 100 Books under Amazon’s Transformation category last month). We literally woke up one morning feeling great and by that evening, our world had been turned upside down.
Throughout the next several weeks, it would be some of the hardest times in our lives. We would not only be emotionally devastated, but financially devastated at well.
In our newest book that is due out this year, Living Beyond Rich, we share our journey in the hopes that 70% of Americans who are currently living paycheck to paycheck will gain inspiration, motivation, and hope. Here is a excerpt from the book…a story our pastor told that rings true for all of us:
Our pastor did a sermon that put it in perspective for us when it came to emergencies. He talked about the hills and valleys in our lifetime. It centered bible verse that refers to “WHEN trouble comes your way” NOT “IF trouble comes your way.” He went on to clarify that God never promised that we wouldn’t have troubles, God clearly states that WHEN trouble comes our way to rely on Him.
What? I must have skipped over that part in the bible. I thought if we were faithful followers and did good things, we could avoid pain in our lives…wasn’t that right?
Our pastor illustrated that there were three phases in EVERYONE’S path that centered around where we were at when it came to storms hitting our lives.
- We were either getting ready to head into a storm.
- We were in a storm.
- We were coming out of a storm.
What an incredible illustration of what our troubles in life really look like. We had never looked at it this way before and therefore felt cheated when emergencies did come our way.
We were letting life happen to us versus us happening to life.
Rather than being intentionally prepared for those storms in life, we were unprepared and our poorly built foundation was now being ripped apart.
It isn’t fair we wanted to yell! We didn’t ask for our son to develop a lifetime disease. If only this wouldn’t have happened to us, we would be okay.
Throughout the years we seemed to always be waiting on something to fix our problem such as a raise at work, a tax return, some unexpected windfall of money. When we got that promotion, tax return, new job, when we could take out another loan, etc. then we would be okay.
70% of us have built our financial foundations on poor soil by living paycheck to paycheck. Rather than looking to us as the solution, we are waiting for some lottery type event to happen in our lives. If and when that lottery happens to us we tell ourselves, things will be better.
We definitely lived with this type of attitude for the first 17+ years of our marriage. Always waiting, but never hitting that lottery. When would it come? We were just sure we would “catch a break” someday.
The lottery did come our way, but certainly not how we pictured it would come.
If you are waiting on that lottery in your life to happen, join our blog and follow along our journey. We were once in the shoes of the 70% of Americans that live paycheck to paycheck. If getting personal finances in order seems impossible, you are visiting the right blog!
Many blessings and remember to sign up to receive our blogs as they post.
Live Beyond Awesome.
Jen
Author, Debt Elimination Coach, and Inspirational Storyteller
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