God has challenged me to write about how He will supernaturally pay off our mortgage in 5 years. I am a homemaker, my husband is a teacher, and we have three children. Our mortgage balance at the start of this blog is $97,802.62 with a projected payoff date of May 11, 2035.

Sounds foolish, huh? The Bible says that, "...God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise;..." So I am choosing to be foolish and trust Him. He's never let me down before.

Monday, March 21, 2016

Doubt-Free

I have been putting off writing about this.

2016 will be the five-year anniversary of "My Mortgage Miracle".  Anniversaries are occasions for celebration, right?

Well, I hesitate to celebrate because this year also marks the deadline for the miracle that I am expecting God to perform--paying off our now $78, 822.74 mortgage.  Quite honestly, I'm getting nervous.

Why?  Because did I hear Him right?  Am I sure this is what He spoke to me?  Yes, our mortgage has gone down significantly, but that's just from our regular monthly payments.  We haven't had any windfalls that we could add to the principal balance.  It's like when we had credit card bills and could only afford the minimum payment.  That's just where we're at.

As I was thinking worrying about this recently, trying to figure out how we could tighten our belts even more to make this miracle happen, God interrupted.  I cannot quote God verbatim, but what follows is something like what might have been his end of our conversation.

"I never said that I was going to pay off your mortgage the same way I paid off your consumer debt.  My ways and my thoughts are not like yours.  Stop trying to figure me out and trust me.  Trust me based on everything I've been through with you.  Trust me because I am God."

He showed me scripture that spoke of his promise to give Abram a land of his own.  It reads, "Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you." Genesis 13:17  Next to that scripture I had previously written, "our debt" and "being debt-free".

Understand that I am not completely doubt-free.  Still there are times when I dwell on what I don't see rather than having faith in what is unseen (Hebrews 11).  But I am comforted by how God takes the time to meet me where I am in my weakness.


Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Pizza Party

Our son Blaise's 10th birthday was last month.  Instead of having a party we agreed upon an outing with a friend.  Skyzone was the venue of choice and a friend from church was his companion for the evening.

Can anybody relate to the "belated birthday celebration"?  It's when your household has so many other things going on that celebrations are put off until weeks after the birthday has come and gone.  Before anyone calls Children and Youth on us, keep in mind that we do acknowledge the birthday as well as celebrate as a family on the actual day.  The party part however is delayed for lack of time.

Well, today is the day.  Blaise's friend will come over after school to have dinner with us and then we'll head to Skyzone for trampoline fun.  In lieu of taking the boys out to a meal or delivering pizza in for a meal, I am making my own pizza.  Homemade pizza is a staple in our household.  Ross would make it in the early years of our marriage when I had ZERO interest in cooking anything that didn't come in a box.  Watching him knead that dough made my head spin as I thought, 'I could never learn to do that!'  Well, now I am the regular maker of the dough (although I did never learn to knead because my KitchenAid stand mixer's dough hook does that grunt work for me.)  Below are the ingredients needed to make a killer pizza dough.



I usually purchase a 3 pack of yeast then knock out three doughs one right after the other while my mixer is out.  It takes me about 30 minutes to do all three.  Next is the rising process.  A nice sunny spot by the window helps this process along quite nicely!


Finally toppings...I did one with basil and cheese and one with sausage and cheese (shown below).  I could've kicked myself because I wanted to use feta cheese with the sausage but I forgot and used mozzarella.  I purchased a 5 lb. bag of feta for $9.99 at my favorite grocery store last week and have since been incorporating it into every meal known to man :-)


And finally the end product...two fabulously delicious pizzas (as confirmed by our little birthday party guest who exclaimed during dinner, "I need to come to your house more often to eat!") made with ingredients we already had in our kitchen. 



Pizza party, anyone?