discernment

discernment's been fresh on my mind since last week's session of the bible study i'm currently doing, Living Beyond Yourself by Beth Moore  (EVERYONE should do this bible study. seriously. it's foundational)

so... i had my own discerning moment or as i now refer to it, 'the Lord kicked my butt' moment!

since becoming a homemaker i realize (now) that i have allowed/used {the lack of extra income} to lessen my drive to attack debt. 

yes, our finances are affected by my not working and it does slow down the debt paying process, YET i allowed it become more than that. an excuse to do no more than the bare minimum {confessing here}.

so, this past week we were blessed with monetary gifts and i got it in my head that we should save up the cash and purchase our couch that we have been eying {that just looks like it's spelled wrong!}. we wouldn't be going into debt over it, we'd pay for it in full. it's only a matter of time before our current free garage sale couches {which we are most grateful for} finally die. 

in the midst of this, the Holy Spirit is reminding me of the debt pay off and how the money should go to that. i don't deny it. i just wanted (NOW) to have the couch (NOW)because the debt pay off is going to take longer (FLESHLY DESIRES) and we were planning to replace the freebie couches anyway (NOW).

yep.

so this continues.. Holy Spirit reminding {convicting} and me not denying yet moving forward with my couch plans. i share said plans with husbend. he's on board.

so, monday, on our anniversary, he suggests we go visit our couch {yes. we do that}. so off to Big Lots {seriously} we go. 

i go to the spot it most recently was, it's not there.
no problem, they move things around plus that's happened before, when it's been purchased and then they put another one out.

Big Lots dude walks by so i ask where { my } couch is.

His response?  "It's been discontinued." 

i pushed and asked for more info, that's not the point though. 

the point is i just stood there KNOWING that our Lord had intervened. I had ignored the Holy Spirit's promptings.

In that moment i knew my butt had just been kicked.

My heart hurts.

knowing i had gone against what i knew our Lord had been saying to me.

after we left, Jeremiah shared that when he heard it was discontinued, he also knew it was God intervening. 

as we talked further, we were both on the same page regarding our debt. that we needed to get aggressive again and put this 'couch' money towards debt. {which in a round about way is still going towards a couch because it's helping us get out of debt sooner, and get that couch sooner. or not...}

i totally ignored/squelched the Holy Spirit. yet i didn't give it that magnitude at the time. 

i'm grateful. i can honestly say that.
i am grateful He intervened, when He could've allowed us to follow through and most likely reap consequences. 

it's been hitting me afresh.

major conviction regarding how i've been {not so} good a steward of what has been given me.

end result;

it felt good to write that $409 check to debt this week -if not humbling. 

Lord, that i may NEVER ignore you that blatantly again. Thank you for showing me my weakness in this area.

and thank you for the reminder these 'freebie' couches are to me now :)