No Matter What

Want to find out what the five key things were that Marybeth and I called our "No Matter What's" when we were getting out of debt? Go here and find out!

Learning to Live Financially free

It's here! Marybeth and I have recently published a book with Kregel called "Learning to Live Financially Free." In it, we tell our story of working our way out of $99,000 worth of credit card, car, student loan, and IRS debt. There’s also a ton of practical stuff we’ve learned like making a budget and teaching your kids about finances.

We also have a new blog! Come visit us at http://www.marybethandcurt.blogspot.com/ to get daily updates, tell us your story about getting out of debt, or to email us your questions. We look forward to hearing from you!

More Disgusting News

This is disgusting.

According to a story being reported on yahoo news, Commander David K. Rehbein of The American Legion says he is "deeply disappointed and concerned" after a meeting with President Obama today to discuss a proposal to force private insurance companies to pay for the treatment of military veterans who have suffered service-connected disabilities and injuries. The Obama administration recently revealed a plan to require private insurance carriers to reimburse the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in such cases. "

In other words, President Obama wants our wounded vets to pay for their own care. According to the report, he believes this will save our country 540 million dollars. I can’t believe I’m even reading this. How outrageous that he would even consider treating the men and women who serve out country this way. We throw billions at the banks, billions at the cars, and pass a trillion dollar budget loaded with pork, but give the finger to the very men and women who fight and serve at home and overseas for the freedoms that you and I enjoy.

Here’s a plan. Go get shot up overseas serving your country and then come home and pay for your own recovery. You’ll help save our country money.

I hope all you idiots that voted for this guy are happy.

UPDATE: Good news. After details of this report spread and President Obama came under heavy fire, he was forced to withdraw his proposal. As put by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, "Obama deferred to concerns raised by the VSOs that his plan could affect families’ access to health care."

And for Anonymous, as evident based on the outcome, I didn't read the report with bias. As Americans, we should be ashamed that we have a president who would even suggest doing something like that to the men and women who serve our country.

Cost or Investment?

Recently, I was talking to a friend about some stuff going on in his company. Times are tight and he was complaining about all his company's cost cutting. He mentioned that the latest thing that their corporate office is focusing on is mileage reimbursements to the sales guys when they travel to see customers. The accounting department is coming down hard on field sales because of the money being spent and demanding that they cut cost.

I couldn't help but think of how differently two people can see the same situation. One guy can look at this travel cost and see an "expense," something that the company should cut back on. I on the other hand look at this cost and see "investment." If anything in these hard economic times, we should be seeing our customers more not less!

There are a lot of things going on in this economy that we can't control. Companies are cutting back on spending money. Loans are harder to get. People are unfortunately losing their jobs. But one thing I know, we still have choices. We can choose to carry a positive attitude about us. We can choose to spend more time with our customers stressing the value our products bring to market. We can choose to give better service, not worse.

Sure, times are tough. But we can either focus all our energies on what we can't do, or we can choose to use this as an opportunity to invest and beat our competitors to the punch!

A Losing Record?

Four years ago, I was asked to coach a start up football team at a large Baptist church in our area. Although I played football through high school, I’d never coached before. It had been years since I’d studied plays or practiced the fundamentals. Nevertheless, I agreed to help coach this new team of 10, 11, and 12 year olds.

We had a lot of things working against us that season. To start, I was a rookie head coach. While most teams in our league had 24 or more players, we had 14, most of which had never played football before. And except for a few, most of the boys on the team were tiny.

I’d like to tell you that we had a made-for-a-Christmas-movie kind of season where we make the playoffs, and win the state title with a miracle field goal in the final second of the game! Unfortunately, the opposite was true. Our team was 0 and 8. There were many games that we never scored a touchdown. For a guy who’s very competitive, who played on teams that won city championships, and whose high school team advanced deep into the state playoffs, this was hard pill to swallow.

Over the course of the season, even though I kept on a good face and spoke words of encouragement to each kid individually, inside I felt like those months spent with that team was a failing effort and wasted time.

Then one day about a year ago, I was eating lunch with a friend in downtown Charlotte. We were sitting out at a table on the sidewalk. A man vaguely familiar came up to me and introduced himself.

“You might not remember me,” he said, “but you coached my son several years ago in football.” I assured him that I did remember both him and his son, a boy who at ten years old had been the quarterback of our team. The man went on, “I just wanted you to know that my son had such a great year that year. He had never really been interested in sports up until then, but after that season with you, he developed a real love for the game of football. He kept playing and all these years later he is a starting outside linebacker on his high school football team. I wanted you to know what an impact you had on him.”

He walked away and I realized that it’s wasn’t the record that mattered that year. A life was changed in the middle of a losing season.

As parents, we also get caught up in the day to day struggles we have with our kids. A lot of days it seems like we’re going 0-8, we struggle to fight our discouragement, and feel like our efforts are failing. But take heart. Our kids are watching and learning and will model what they see.

It’s not your record that matters, but the kind of coach you are for your team.

Wounds

I was finishing a few work emails yesterday in my dining room/office, when I heard my 3 year old start crying and my 12 year old yell out for me.

“Dad! Come here now! Now! Dad!”

I knew from his tone something was wrong. As parents, we’ve joked with our kids about not coming to us unless something’s broken or there’s blood. This time there was blood. Lots of it.

I quickly ran into the den and found blood pouring out from a cut on my daughter’s forehead above her eyebrow. She’d stumbled and hit her head on the corner of our brick hearth. Me and four kids, one of which has a serious, profusely bleeding head, alone at home. Instant chaos.

Adrenalin took over. Hold my thumb over the cut to stop the bleeding. Send my twelve year old into the kitchen to get a clean washcloth. Press the washcloth against the cut. Calm the six and nine year old down with soothing words that I don’t feel. Tell them to get their shoes on and get in the car. Carry the three year old to the car (still pressing the washcloth against wound), hollar at the 12 year old to follow me, strap the three year old in, and show the 12 year old how to keep the wound from bleeding. Go back in the house. Put my shoes on. Grab my car keys and cell phone. Rush to the hospital ER.

You can probably imagine the rest of the night. All five of us huddled around my little girl, each wanting and wishing we could make her all better. I called my dad and he was great. He came and got the three non-bleeding kids and took them to dinner and home to spend the night. My three year old and I did the wait-to-get-seen-at-the-ER thing. Other then sitting for hours trying to keep her occupied, the only bad part was when she had to get a shot to numb the area around the cut. Four stitches and five hours later, we were on our way back home. Oh, and thanks to the guy who bought my daughter a coke. I wish I had gotten your name…

Even after six kids, I can’t get used to seeing one of them hurt. Last night, I held my daughter in my arms while she was crying. I would have done anything to take away her pain. If you’re reading this and a parent you know what I’m talking about. Nobody likes to see any kid hurt, but there’s something that makes it worse when it’s your child. There’s an unexplainable invisible attachment that causes you to intensely feel the things that they feel.

My daughter got up this morning all smiles. The memory of the ER visit was still fresh, but she was moving forward in her merry, princess sort of way, forgetting about the pain of the night before. I bathed her around mid morning and washed away the blood that had gotten in her hair.

I was down on my knees drying her hair and wrapping the towel around her body when she looked at me with those big blue eyes, her charming smile, and said in her happiest voice, “I love you daddy!” Three year old arms wrapped themselves around my neck. I had done a pretty good job so far of controlling my emotions throughout our little "adventure." Thank goodness no one was around at that moment to see me start crying.

Peacemakers

For the past seventeen years, Marybeth and I have lived unconventional lives. We got married in college, had a bunch of kids, and homeschooled. Living differently then our peers has brought different forms of criticism, and over the years I reacted to it in three different ways.

Initially I was the peacekeeper. A friend would make a comment about the number of kids we had and ask if “we knew what caused that.” I’d laugh along with him to keep the peace. Our family members would argue with us about the effectiveness of homeschooling and I would try and find common middle ground.

Somewhere along the way I got more argumentative. I became more outspoken about my beliefs, but not in a way that helped others understand why Marybeth and I did what we did. For whatever reason, I was quick to tell you why what you were doing was inferior to what I was doing.

For the last five or six years I’ve just been quietly living my life. Instead of becoming more “normal,” Marybeth and I have continued doing crazy things like paying off all our debt, homeschooling, and adding a sixth kid to the Whalen clan. If anything, our beliefs about family size, the role of father/mother/husband/wife, money, and raising kids have become even stronger. But instead of being outspoken and self promoting, we just quietly throw ourselves into culture and do our thing. I figure that if people are interested in what I think, they’ll ask me.

I’ve learned that you can’t talk someone into believing something. People’s minds are changed by what they observe and see with their own eyes. If someone likes what they see in my life, they’ll ask about my beliefs, and I will give them an honest, loving, thoughtful response that will be intended to help them apply principles I’ve learned into their own lives.

Something happened yesterday that made me mentally revisit all this. I was working in a Starbucks and happened to be sitting next to a few guys I recognized (but didn't know me) who were talking badly about something I’m very passionate about. For about 10 minutes, I sat quietly and continued working. I didn’t even get very emotional to be honest. Like I said above, I’ve learned that speaking out in that kind of situation only leads to an argument about style.

But then it got personal. One of these Christian men began speaking negatively about the character of a guy that I know. What the guy was saying was an outright lie. Enough was enough. This has never been typical of me, but I turned and personally confronted him about his comments and pointed out his sinful behavior.

Here’s something that I wish I had been told early in my Christian years. The church does a great job reminding Christians that we are to be loving, humble, and respectful of others. Jesus said that if we’re forced to walk one mile with an enemy, we should go two. If we sin against our brother, we should drop everything and go make reconciliation. But I think the church does a bad job of teaching Christians that we don’t have to stand by quietly and ignore sin. We don’t keep the peace at all costs. Adam was silent and Eve ate an apple. Peter acted sinfully and Paul confronted him to his face. Jesus stood up to an angry, self righteous mob of men who were ready to hurl stones at a woman caught in adultery.

In Matthew 5:9, Jesus doesn’t call us to be “peacekeepers.” What he says is that we are to be “peacemakers.” For him to say that someone must make peace (active) means that there has to be wars going on around us. “Peacemakers” are needed in our churches, in our homes, and in our nations. A “peacemaker” will boldly confront sin without worrying about the cost to himself. A “peacemaker” is motivated by Biblical truth and by love for and fear of God. A “peacemaker” interrupts fellow Christians when they’re gossiping about someone and damaging the cause of Christ. A “peacemaker” confronts a man who he knows is having an affair and tearing apart his family.

The Hebrew equivalent to “peace” is the word "shalom." This word is rich in meaning and was, for the Jew, the common word of greeting. Not only does shalom convey the absence of strife and evil, but also the presence of all good things. To wish shalom on another was in essence to say, "I wish for you not only the absence of all that may harm, but also the presence of everything that makes for a person's good."

There is a time for silence and there is a time to speak out. Confrontation to make peace is an element of our Christian life. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”