Tag: family

Christmas, encouragement, Stress

How I Stopped Stressing About Christmas by Saving a Little Each Week

The Kedge Anchor

Christmas can be stressful. Searching for the perfect gifts, the baking, the decorating can weigh on us after awhile. Let’s not forget our bank account. It’s not like everyone gets a Christmas bonus every year. And if you’re like me, you have to ship a few packages. It all adds up and it stresses me out.

I decided that I could plan better for Christmas if I did it slowly over time. It occurred to me one year long after Christmas, like the summer, I found a gift for my sister and decided to buy it and put it away. I felt like I had a win. When I was out shopping, I’d be on the look out for potential Christmas gifts, especially if someone had mentioned something they wanted. If I found something, I bought it and put it away. It was a great feeling to be ahead of the game. There was one year, I was done by Thanksgiving. Then it was just baking, decorating and Christmas parties.🪅🎄

Having a cash 💰 stash or a Christmas savings account was the biggest rush. When I was a kid, our bank Old Stone Bank, had a Christmas savings pass book. Yes I am mid century modern old, not Stone Age. Anyway you could put away $5 or $10 a week and by the end of the year you’d have $520 or $260 back then that was a.lot.of.money (and you actually had to walk into the back with the cash and teller made an entry in your pass book). That gave me an idea. How much could I set aside every week so that I would have Christmas money to spend? I tried putting aside $1 on week one, $2 week two… that came to $10 the first month. By the third month, 19 weeks that is $70. I was on a budget and each month that was like a bill going up. That wasn’t working. I decided that $25 a week would be a start. (OK that was ten years ago). Even $25 a week is $1300. Ten years ago, that went a long way and I just rolled it over for next year. Now if you are just starting, it’s ok. You need to start somewhere and it will be more than you have if you didn’t start. This will pay off in 2027, trust me it’s a rush. I usually had extra money in the account for birthday gifts during the year. I could by decorations, baking goods, whatever I needed for Christmas. It’s a Christmas rush of a different kind 😉I felt great to not have to pay back the credit card company and still have some cash to roll over. It was a huge stress reliever.

Please subscribe and follow me on social media and stay tuned in the next post I will tell you how I stashed the money and was able to add to it during the year.

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The Meaning of Ohana: God’s Design for Community and Family

The Kedge Anchor
Photo by Tru1ea7n Long on Pexels.com

I may be dating myself a bit, but every time I think of luaus or Hawaii, I think the Brady Bunch episodes where the Brady’s tag along with their dad to Hawaii on a business trip. At the time, the Brady’s weren’t recognized as a blended family. But, that is indeed what they were. A widow with three girls and a widower with three boys that’s how “we became the Brady Bunch.” If you know, you know.

The Hawaiian word for family is Ohana, it can also mean community. God created us for community, we weren’t meant to do life alone. God gave Adam, Eve, In Genesis 2:18, said “it’s not good for a man to be alone.” Jesus had a blended family, having step brothers and sisters, His disciples are a another example. They traveled together, they shared meals together, they did ministry together. Just as the Brady’s were a blended family, there are other versions of blended families today, some have step parents and step siblings like the Brady’s, some have half siblings, there are foster families, our co-workers can be like a family and our church is definitely a family.

There are several other examples of families in the Bible. Naomi and Ruth is a good example that comes to mind. If you’re not familiar with their story I encourage you to read the book of Ruth and see how God brought them together and provided for them. It’s not that long and if you’re up to it read a commentary.

A little background, Naomi had a husband and two sons and lived in Bethleham, until a famine hit when they traveled to the foreign land of Moab. Only for Naomi to lose her husband. Her sons both both married Moab women, Ruth and Orpah. About ten years later Naomi’s die.

These three woman are now without husbands and are childless. These are good circumstances for these women. Back in their day, Naomi, Ruth and Orpha would have returned to their hometowns, their own people. Orpha remained with her people in Moab, but Ruth remained loyal to her mother in law and went back to Bethlehem with her. Ruth 1:16 – “But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”

Naomi and Ruth were once connected by Naomi’s sons, now they were connected by God and His people. We may come from different parts of the country, of the world, we may come from a different culture but as a followers of Jesus it’s His blood that connects us and makes us family, makes us Ohana.

I want to be sensitive to the fact that not everyone has a family, for whatever reason. Many experience loneliness on a daily basis. They don’t have anyone to connect with or to. But, when we become a part of God’s family we have the opportunity to build genuine, loving, lasting relationships through Jesus, He connects us, He connects us with and to God, our Heavenly Father, who forgives us and gives us eternal life.

When we have family and friends we have one of God’s blessed and precious gifts, because we were meant to live in community. Having God’s people as our people, we can have a support system we can count on when we need prayer, encouragement on hard days and the opportunity to be blessed by serving God’s people. One way we can connect with God’s people is by attending a local Bible believing church, getting involved and sharing our faith with each other and unbelievers.

The best connection is with God Himself who promises eternal life when we repent of our sins and promises to never leave us or forsake us. Being a part of God’s people we will always have family.

Leave a comment below how you have been blessed by God’s people.