A Brush With Bambi - Fully Illustrated!

I never saw the deer coming. All I heard was the sound it made as it connected with 75mph of moving steel. I saw an explosion of hair tufts and dirt and its mangled body being tossed up over the hood of the tow truck that hit it, but that was all. It was over in about two seconds.

Me in my Mr. Miyagi car minding my own business.

The "Dwayne The Rock Johnson" of tow trucks coming up behind me.

It was Monday morning, June 2, 2014. I was on my way to work when I saw the tow truck coming up behind me. It was a thick beast of a truck, kind of like what Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson might look like if he were a Transformer. The truck was moving pretty fast, too—but, then again, I'm on this whole "how much gas can I save?!" kick so I was only doing about 58mph in a 65mph zone. Still, The Rock truck must've been doing 70 or 75.

The Rock moved into the left lane to pass me. I had plenty of time to see if a deer was coming before the truck obscured my view of the roadside, so when that animal came bounding up onto the highway it must've been bookin' it, otherwise I'm pretty sure I would've seen it. When the two connected The Rock jolted from bumper to bumper. The truck slowed and I pulled ahead of it, glancing back to see if the driver was ok. The truck wasn't even dented, and a moment later it sped back up and went on its way.

Bambi was dead on impact. At least I hope she was. In my 32 years of living in New England I've had more close encounters with roadside deer than any other animal. They are creatures of darkness, more dangerous to man's highway travels than any other force of nature.

Bambi always looks innocent until she's leaping in front of your car.

"The Rock" truck turns Bambi into an aerial acrobat at 75mph.

So, first, a confession. I'm embarrassed to admit that it took a couple minutes for it to even occur to me that at the speed that deer was moving it would've crossed into my lane and right into my windshield had that tow truck not been there. That tow truck came at just the right time. Chances are my little Suzuki would not have fared as well as The Rock—my CX4 is more akin to Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid; it's a tough little nut, but it's no match for 125 pounds of charging animal.

It got me thinking of how many other times God chooses to protect me and I don't even know it. How many times does a car problem or a delay at work or an ignored alarm clock keep me from harm? How many things does God do behind the scenes to protect me?

I think I almost take it for granted, because—ok, second confession—I didn't even think to thank the Lord for his protection until later that afternoon. When I finally did I felt ashamed and humbled, but extremely grateful for His grace.

I know He doesn't always choose to protect us, but many times He does. Do we take it for granted?

Keep pinchin' :-)

My Word For Next Year....

After much careful thought and consideration about this past year, I have come up with my 2014 word for the year. Dun, dun, da dun! ... FAITHFULNESS.

I felt like this word perfectly encompassed what I want to work toward this next year. As I thought about 2013 and what I wanted to see different for 2014 I thought of things like:

• Faithfulness in our finances. I want us to continue slaying our debt like we have this past year by spending wisely and having the wisdom to know how to best use the resources God has blessed us with.


• Faithfulness in living a healthy lifestyle. In previous years I have been good about running in the summer, of consistently walking or participating in some other type of exercise, but 2013 proved to be challenging in this area. In 2014 I want to not only see myself be more faithful in exercising, but also in eating healthy.


• Faithfulness in being good stewards of the homestead God has blessed us with. I think we can do this by learning how to better care for the plants and trees we have in our yard, and also continuing to work on projects in and around our house.


• Faithfulness in continuing to work on being the wife my husband needs me to be. I want to get better at supporting him. I want to study him so as to learn more about him so that one day I'll have my Ph.D. in Jake :-) I think right now I may still be in elementary school!

But more importantly than all of the other areas I want to be more faithful in my personal quiet time, prayer life, and spiritual growth. Without that I might as well forget about the rest.

I think my verse to go with Faithfulness for the year will be Luke 16:10-12:

"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?"

What are some of the areas you want to change in 2014?

Keep Pinchin' :-)

Is It A Lack Of Faith or A Lack of Prayer? ... A Followup

On Friday, I wrote about how our finances ebb and flow in Is It A Lack of Faith or A Lack of Prayer? I had noticed that Jake and I had kind of grown lazy in asking the Lord to provide extra work and extra money for us. Whether our tight finances this month are a consequence of that or not, who can say?—but a really funny thing happened.

In my mind, I took this before the Lord. I knew Jake and I hadn't been praying very consistently for God's provision, but then within 24 hours of writing that post I received two babysitting job offers through a website where I advertise my service. I have only ever gotten one job offer from there in the past. When I told the hubs about this, he told me that he had been contacted about two photography jobs, a book illustrating job, and a graphic design job—not to mention the very generous and unexpected Christmas bonus he received from his employers.

At that time Jake had yet to read the blog post. So he read it. Then he told me to stop praying because too much extra work was coming in. :-)

How awesome is our God?! I could have whined and complained about the lack of extra income. I could have doubted that God is for us in our debt-slaying adventure, but instead I tried my best to have faith and hold on to things I know to be truth, and He completely exceeded what I would have asked for.

I don't know if this is always how God chooses to work for us, but I will choose to continue to trust in Him, no matter what happens. I will choose to have faith that He has good plans for me. I will choose to believe the truth that He is for us and not against us! Once again it's all about choices!

Keep pinchin' :-)

Is It A Lack of Faith or A Lack of Prayer?

Back in September, Jake and I spent a lot of time in prayer, asking God to guide us with our finances, to provide extra income, and bless us in our efforts to get out of debt. And He certainly did!

October and November were a whirlwind of blessings: we got lots of extra income from odd jobs that sprang up, and our Penny Pinching rap video caught the attention of Katie Couric and earned us an all-expenses paid trip to New York City and a stint on her national TV show! (You can read about all that awesomeness here!) We spent these months in stunned amazement at, not only how quickly God had provided, but how much.

In December, however, our extra income dropped to next to nothing. What should have been some extra money from a photography job actually cost us money when the client's check bounced, not to mention the added expenses of below-freezing winter temperatures and Christmas time.

I began to wonder, what happened to all of the blessings? Things had been going so well for us. We were sending in lots of extra money toward our mortgage, and then it seemed like the faucet was turned off. We had been so busy praising God for His goodness, but I can't recall many prayers for continued blessings in our finances.

Now, I don't think we earned less this month because we forgot to keep praying for God's blessing on our finances. Prayer certainly doesn't hurt, but God is faithful, and nothing I can do or fail to do will change that. But as I look back over this past year I can see how I've failed to make my personal quiet time with the Lord a regular occurrence. I can blame the chaotic changes in my work schedule, the lack of Christian accountability in my life, or all the extra jobs I work, but at the end of the day the truth is that I just don't make God a priority like I should. I want to do more than just ask for his blessings. I want to do more than rejoice in His goodness. Why? Because I want more of Him—more of His goodness, more of His blessings, more of His joys and gifts! And I believe the key to doing that is not just making petitions in prayer, but seeking Him, because when He's not priority in my life everything else suffers.

As 2013 comes to a close and I look ahead at another year, I am thinking about what I want to be focused on. I like the idea of coming up with a theme word for the year, and maybe a verse that goes with that word, and then trying to focus on it throughout the year. I'll let you know what I come up with.

Bottom line: I want my faith in my Savior to be stronger. I want to thank Him every day for his blessings. I don't want to fear or worry when things aren't going as easily as they once were. I want to seek Him more and more so that even when things aren't as easy, or aren't going as "planned," I won't waver in my trusting in His provision, but know that He desires to do exceedingly above all I could ask or think.

Keep pinchin' :-)