The Power of Deadlines and a Three-Fold Miracle

Sadly, I have finally found what motivates me...... deadlines.  We talked about doing crafts all through the winter and we did do some, but not as many as I had hoped.  Something always came up that interrupted us from doing more.  Our evenings were busy, but we weren't able to use our basement where we had set up a table for working because of the constant flooding down there (still to be fixed!).   Excuses, excuses.....

Finally, I read a little blurb in the newspaper about a craft table being available and I asked RM if he thought we could do it.  "Sure!"  We hardly had anything to sell at that point, but we had a ton of ideas.  We thought we had tons of time, but between his engineering work and farming work, we are down to the wire.  That is why deadlines are so good.  If we weren't committed, i.e., we paid for table space, then I'm sure we would have said, "Forget it, no time", but now, we have no choice!  Has it taken the love of sewing from me?  Uh, a little.  It is never fun trying to create things under pressure!  But at the same time, it excites me!  Now, only a few days away, we've been trying to use every free moment to finish up something here or there and we won't have much, but we'll have a little.  Nothing is particularly professional looking and we might not even sell one thing, but it has been a good experience for our kids and even for us to see what it takes.  So far this is the only one we've signed up for.  I think we wanted to see if we would be able to even do one fair this summer and sure enough, it was more work than we thought it would be.  I kind of forgot

I also signed up for a 5K  That is the only reason I get out of bed these days as I had fallen into a bit of a rut in the winter and was finding it really hard to get out of bed if I had had a bad night.  I was still getting up early, but I was no longer exercising and I could tell.  This deadline which is fast approaching, as well, is incredibly motivating!  I had never run a 5K before until 3 years ago.  I did a very funny program called "Couch to 5K" (great name for a program don't you think?) and it worked - I managed to finish a 5K in a decent amount of time.  I didn't win any awards, but I was pretty proud of the accomplishment.  Three years later, I was needing the motivation again.  I figured I didn't need to sign up for a 5K, I'd have enough inner motivation to do it.  Nope.  Again, I would wake up, but you couldn't get me out the door.  Finally, I made my daughter sign me up.  There was a cost, so I didn't want to waste my money.  Suddenly, there I am, running each morning.  I don't really enjoy it, the actual exercise, but I do love being outside and enjoying the amazing summer weather.  We live in a very scenic area, so it is awesome to run where grapes are being grown, hay is being cut, barns are being put up.... all so beautiful.  I wait for so many months for this kind of weather, so I figure this is a good way to enjoy it.  I pray for a lot of the time I'm running and the rest of the time I'm trying to figure out a way to get home faster as there are also a lot of hills where I live and that makes it a very unpleasant experience.  The 5K is a very awful run, tons of hills, so I actually have to train on these hills or I'll die the day of which I nearly did 3 years ago.

I'm kind of grateful for these deadlines though.  They show me how much I could be accomplishing if I were this motivated all the time.  It also reveals how much time I waste when I'm not motivated.   We've tried to motivate ourselves with respect to debt, too.  We've given ourselves certain deadlines to have it paid off by, for example, the next time the mortgage comes up for renewal, we'd like to say, "We don't need to renew, here's the rest that is owed".  Perhaps, like the craft table, we won't have it all there at that meeting, but we're pushing ourselves to do it. 

Another miracle has happened in this whole getting-out-of-debt process, too.  When RM was writing his course, he was offered a certain amount of money plus a certain percentage for the royalties (based on how many would watch his course).  He could have taken a lower amount of money and higher royalties, but it was a little too risky.  Plus, and this is my sceptical wife coming out, I honestly didn't think anyone would actually watch his course!  It turns out his course is extremely popular, who knew!?  So now, unbelievably, he is actually making money off his course through the royalties!  This is a complete surprise to me and to him, too. 

The miracle is three-fold:

#1 - He's doing something that he loves to do, share his knowledge.  We always wondered how he could make money off of the wealth of knowledge he had without boring people to death at dinner parties!  Writing it all down in the form of a course is perfect!  He'll literally never run out of ideas for courses.... so amazing. 

#2 - It isn't killing him physically!  In the last few years, he's struggled with pain a lot due to the hard physical labour he's put in over the years and it's finally catching up with him.  He takes a lot of pain killers just to get through a day sometimes.  Writing the courses allows him to sit at his desk and just write!  He does get stiff sitting there if he writes for hours in a row, but living on a farm means he has lots of reasons to get up, too.  However, it isn't causing him the level of pain he was experiencing from his engineering work.  We'll still take the hard physical labour, especially if it means getting us out of debt, but this has been a welcome relief.

#3 - This is completely out of the blue and a gift from God.  We have no way of controlling who watches the course or how many watch his courses.  It is entirely out of our hands.  Knowing it is being watched by so many humbles us and makes us grateful for God's blessing on all the work RM did.  His job was to be diligent and faithful in the writing and God is doing the rest.  I had read about miracles like this in "Getting Out of Debt" books where it seemed impossible to get out of debt as there was no additional sources of income to pay down debt, but then, once the couple made the decision to get out of debt, God would miraculously provide extra income out of nowhere.  And, like everything we've observed since we started this journey, it's always little by little, never huge amounts of income, just small increments that keep us faithful, yet encouraged, to keep on keeping on.

Deadlines and miracles.  God knows what we need to get us moving, both figuratively and literally!  And to keep us going, He just throws in a miracle now and then!  He understands us so well.  I'm amazed at His goodness.