Mini Van Momma.

Well, it's finally happened...I'm a Mini Van Momma. I remember when I was growing up one of the country music radio stations that my mom listened to on the way to school in the morning had a long running segment each week titled Mad Moms in Mini Vans. I often wondered why there were mad moms driving the mini vans, but as it turns out I now better understand the title of the segment. As a mom it's impossible to never be mad...unless your last name happens to be Dugger (I love love the Duggers, but wonder how they never get mad about anything). So now, twenty years later and I myself have become a Mad Mom in Mini Van.

I swore this day would never come, but atlas it has. It's really not near as bad as I once imagined...but don't tell anyone I said that. There's actually a story behind our new family vehicle and I'd love to share it with you (as well as record it for myself).

A few years back while we still lived in that wonderful city of Weatherford, Texas, New River, our home church out yonder, hosted a preaching series on a book titled The Blessed Life by Robert Morris. I loved the series and purchased the book immediately to explore the subject further. The principles in the book were some that had never been presented or explained to me before. As a child I have vivid memories of my Dad writing checks to the church every week. Regretfully, I never asked and he never volunteered the principle behind the action. However, now that I've been made aware of the reason for his action I am able to fully appreciate his heart...even years later! Isn't it wonderful how God works!!!

So, back to the book...The Blessed Life, in a nutshell, explains the principle behind tithing to the church; what a tithe is, how and why it should be done and what happens when we obey and disobey this biblical principle. And this book changed our lives!!!

Before reading this book we would toss in 20 bucks here and 40 bucks there each Sunday as the tithe was collected. After reading this book we clearly understood that tithing was not only giving 10 percent of all income, but the first 10 percent of all income. Boy, were we off with our 20 or 40 bucks! Changes had to be made. There was some hesitation in the beginning, mainly because we were struggling to make ends meet...and sometimes failed greatly at making ends meet. One of the most impactful statements Robert Morris made in his book could be paraphrased like this: when you choose to tithe, you choose to live under the umbrella of God's blessing. When you choose not to tithe, the opposite happens. He went on to ask: Would you rather live on 90 percent of blessed income or 100 percent of cursed income. That question pretty much got me, hook, line and sinker. I was sold! No more not tithing for the Pugh family. And since then we have been faithful with our tithes and God has been faithful with the blessings!

Back to the mini van...at the beginning of this year Brandon and I sat down and made a plan to get out of debt. Now, I have to clarify here that we never have had a lot of credit card debt, but we were focused on paying off the small amount we had on credit cards, both vehicles and hopefully refinancing our home to a 15 year mortgage. We wrote out some plans, started praying and continued to tithe. Since January we have met almost all of these goals with the exception of a small amount on one credit card. Praise God!!! We expected this plan to not be completed until the end of the year, but here it is the first of April and we are a few weeks away from meeting our goal! And we are taking NO credit...this is all God. The mini van was my big compromise. We needed to get rid of our other family vehicle and the loan that came along with it. We had saved up a decent amount of cash to buy a new family vehicle knowing that it could possibly be a down grade in quality, but as it turns out God had other things in store. He once again blessed our efforts to eliminate debt and we found a van two years newer, 30.000 miles fewer and just at our cash budget. So I traded up and lost $6500 worth of debt all at the same time! Can't beat that deal, huh?

It's not the car of my dreams, but sometimes we just have to die to self and know that what we do in obedience will always feel better than what we do when we are not in the will of God. It's a hard lesson, for me especially, but He is leading us and I'm quite excited to see where we'll end up!

If you haven't read The Blessed Life I strongly suggest it to everyone. It will teach you so many truths about being a good steward, which is something we should all strive to be.

God bless!