Louder Than the Voices

Happy Saturday! Hope you are all having a wonderful start to your weekend. This week, we continue our Money Diet series. I called this one counting the cost and I have been doing a lot of this recently. There are a lot of things going on in our lives money-wise. Things are popping up with Mom's estate that we weren't expecting, Before Mom died, we had planned on doing some upgrades to our house, which has taken weird turns several times now and I am trying to save for a vacation next year that will be a stress free as the one this year was. So, onward... We got home from Branson on a Saturday evening. We had already discussed that we wanted to do this again next summer so, I wanted to figure out a budget that would pay for another nice trip. We had an advantage because this time we have a year to save and last time, we only had about 6 months. Our vacation wasn't free, We saved for it, Robert contributed his share, just like we had planned months earlier. We did spend a lit...

 Good morning! A few weeks ago, we did something that was pretty special for our family. For the first time since Robert became an adult, we took a family vacation together. When he accepted his new job, he told me, "In six months, I get a week of vacation, and I want us to go to Branson." My response wasn't, "We'll figure it out when the time comes." It was, "Then we need to start saving now." Because he was making a good income, I told him that if we were all going to enjoy the trip, he needed to contribute one-third of the cost. So together we sat down and created a budget and a savings plan. It fit right alongside my own budget and savings goals. By the time vacation arrived, we knew exactly how much money we had available. We enjoyed ourselves, saw the shows we wanted to see, ate good food, and made wonderful memories. Did we go a little over budget? Yes. But here's the difference--we weren't putting those memories on credit cards that...

 Good morning, Happy Independence Day and Happy 250th America! Today America celebrates 250 years of independence, it is  a day that reminds us of the courage, sacrifice, and determination of those who fought for freedom. As Christians, we can celebrate our country and be thankful for the liberties we enjoy. We should pray for our nation, honor those who have served, and be grateful that we live in a place where we can openly worship God. But Independence Day also invites us to ask a deeper question: What does freedom really mean? The Bible teaches that while political freedom is valuable, there is another kind of freedom that every person needs. Freedom From Sin Before Christ, we weren't truly free, we were slaves to sin. John 8:34 says, "Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin." He broke our chains, He paid our debt, He opened the prison door. Freedom to Live Differently Christian freedom isn't permission to do whatever we want. It is the ability to become wh...