The Perfectly Imperfect Mama

ELLIE JOY IS ONE!

by Whitney Pegram - Friday, March 01, 2019

WEEKEND [2019] .. ON A WEDNESDAY

by Whitney Pegram - Wednesday, February 13, 2019

BUT GOD.

by Whitney Pegram - Friday, February 08, 2019

Oh friend, I wish I could sit down with you, face to face, with a cup of coffee in hand & just tell you what life has been like for us the past few months. How good God has been to us. But, since we can't do that, I am sharing it right here. I am sharing it because I want God to receive all the glory & praise. I am sharing so that others can know that the storms that come are big but God is bigger.

On December 10, 2018, mine & Dan's world got rocked. He lost his job of twelve years. The job that has provided for our family. And the job we thought for sure he would retire from.

But let's not start there …

In January 2018, God laid a word on my heart as my word of the year .. the word "enough." To be perfectly honest, at the time I wasn't really sure why He laid that word on my heart. For weeks I thought about it & thought okay, God's grace is ENOUGH. That is what He wants me to understand & focus on in 2018. And while that is very much true, He had something else in mind. Something that I never, saw coming.

In the late summer/early fall, God put it in my heart to sit Dan down & discuss downsizing our house. Wait, what? A couple things; I LOVE my house & I have LOVED making it ours. I have become such a homebody over the last few years & I love being in it. So why was it on my heart to downsize? This house seemed so perfect for our family! Dan & I both agreed to pray about it, together & separately. Several times we sat down & decided that we would just stay here … moving takes SO much work, the kids love their school, this is OUR house, we've put so much time & money into it, our neighbors are amazing, etc. Our list of reasons not to move went on & on. And then one day, a few weeks later, I was sitting on my porch, while my kiddos played outside, & it hit me. A house is just a house. We can make a home anywhere. Who is inside of those four walls is ENOUGH.
There it was. My word of 2018.

Enough.

It doesn't matter where we live. It doesn't matter about all the materialistic things in life. Having our family under one roof, wherever it may be, is E N O U G H. What we have is enough.

In the fall, we decided to start cleaning out things .. purging, throwing away & donating stuff. Spring or summer 2019 is when we would try to sell our house. The kids would be almost finished with school & would be out for summer. That timing seemed perfect … right now just wasn't right .. for us.

Later in the fall, Dan started noticing the company that he had been working for was moving in a different direction. A direction that he did not want to go. This was the same job that several years ago, he would admit to you that he was guilty of idolizing. Something he knows that he should have never done. It started interfering with our family time, specifically being asked consistently to work 12+ hour days, five days a week & also receiving multiple phone calls on the weekends asking him to go in for a few hours. It was consuming so much of his time & and it really started taking a toll on him. As his wife, it was very hard for me to watch him struggle with it so much. Not to mention, on top of that, we started struggling financially. We asked each other many times what in the world was going on.

It was as if God was pruning things from our life that wasn't of importance.

What exactly was He preparing us for?

In November, I was at the salon getting my hair done & as I was sitting underneath the dryer, the realtor (that has grown to be such a sweet friend) that sold us our house, sat down across from me. I started telling her about the plans Dan & I had to sell our house in the spring. She began to tell me about how great the housing market was at that time but still, even after that conversation, we had decided again that the time just wasn't right … for us.

On December 10, 2018, just two weeks before Christmas, Dan lost his job. He went into work as he did everyday & that morning his manager pulled him in for a meeting. He asked him to communicate to the production team & other managers the next steps he had planned for him & his position. However, the things he was asking Dan to communicate were untruthful & ultimately going against his character. After his meeting, being shocked at what he was just asked to do, he went throughout the rest of the day, completed his responsibilities knowing in his heart that at the end of the day, he couldn't do what he was being asked to do. He called me, told me what was going on & told me what he was going to do. Something you should know about Dan is that he is never going to go against his character. It's who he is & it's one of my most favorite things about him. He went to his afternoon meeting & that is when he told his manager that he could not do what he was being asked to do & handed him his resignation letter.

Talk about the fear of the unknown.

When it comes to his previous place of employment, Dan has no bitter feelings. We have really chose to see the joy in it. His job allowed me to be a stay at home mom for 8 1/2 years, the benefits were amazing & the money he was making was great. But, the money means nothing if he wasn't truly happy, & he wasn't.

It is safe to say that we were both very nervous, anxious & scared of not knowing how he was going to provide for our family. Christmas was right around the corner & we had not bought our children any gifts. We had no idea where our next paycheck was going to come from. We both agreed to trust God through it all & to tithe with whatever money we had even if it was our last penny. We prayed for guidance & for doors to open that needed to be opened & doors to close that needed to be closed. We had so many people praying for us & we could feel it.

The evening that Dan quit his job, he received a telephone call from the ministry I volunteer at often. He told Dan that he had heard about him losing his job (my mom also works there) & asked if he would be interested in coming to talk to him about a potential job opportunity. Not even four hours of God closing a door, He opened another one. Dan told him yes. Right before he got off the phone, I had just gotten a text that said Cooper, Millie Jo & Ellie Joy's Christmas gifts were taken care of. Oh my heart! It was such a blessing to us. Three different times that week, we came home to our pantry, countertops, refrigerator & freezer full.

After a few interviews & lots of prayer, the week after Dan resigned from his previous job, he accepted the position as an associate director of a ministry. A MINISTRY! US!! WHAT!? God can use anyone He wants & He chose Dan & our family.

We went almost six weeks without a paycheck but never once did we go without.

Only God can do that.

Dan's first day of his new job (I say job but it is a ministry) was January 2, 2019 & since that day, we have felt God continue to bless us & reassure us daily that this is His will. In this ministry, we have the privilege to volunteer as a family. Our children love going & helping! We are so amazed at God's goodness! I have my old Dan back. The one that I have missed so much. He is so full of JOY & it makes my heart so incredibly happy!

Over that six week period, Dan & I both started praying heavily about our house. Remember how we thought the spring/summer was the perfect time for us to sell? Well, God's perfect time was NOW! So here we were, in the middle of a major job change & now God wanted us to sell our house!? In case you were wondering if the saying "God will never give you more than you can handle" is true, I'm here to tell you, it's NOT! He does give us more than we can handle so that we may lean on Him & trust Him with everything we have. For a couple of weeks, we stalked Zillow like it was our job trying to find us a rental house (we decided to rent instead of buy again right away) but found nothing. One morning I woke up at 4am wide awake & started praying. Praying for God's will for our family. We knew He wanted us to sell our home but where in the world were we going to go!? As I was praying I heard Him tell me to stop looking. Take all the real estate apps off my phone & stop looking. He had the perfect place for us, we need only BE STILL. So I did. I told Dan that we needed to stop trying to control something we had no control over. God would put us exactly where He wanted us. Trust me when I say that it was a lot easier said than done. I don't know about you, but I like being in control of things! That's not how God works though. So, we decided to be still & trust. Two weeks went by & one Saturday evening, my mom texted me a picture of the sweetest little house. A lot smaller than what we were used to but it was beautiful. It had been listed less than one hour. I quickly showed Dan & without any hesitation, we contacted our realtor. She got in touch with the realtor renting it & the next day we had an interview with her at the house to see it. We drove separately there & the whole way there, I cried out to Jesus. I needed Him to give me a peace when I walked through that house. And that's exactly what He gave me. Dan & I both fell in love instantly. We walked around & could see our family living there. We put a deposit down THAT night. And here we were, our house wasn't even on the market yet & now we had a rental house, too.

Now what, God? Now what?

The next few weeks, I cleaned our house top to bottom like a mad woman. We fixed a few cosmetic things, we started moving things to the rental house, we did whatever we needed to do to get it on the market.

On Monday, January 28th, I talked to our realtor & told her we were ready to sell. On the 29th, the photographer came to take pictures, that afternoon we signed paperwork & that evening, our house was on the market! That weekend, we had six showings scheduled. One Friday, four Saturday & one on Sunday. By Sunday morning, we had two offers & on Monday morning, we were under contract. OH .. MY .. HEART! Five days. FIVE!

God is faithful. There is nothing He can't do.

I am so thankful for Dan's willingness to trust God & let Him be in control. I am thankful that he never once let the fear of the unknown stop him from being obedient to God. And I am thankful for the way he loves & provides for his family.

I now know exactly why God put the word enough on my heart in January 2018. For months, He had been preparing me for what was to come.

You may now be wondering what my word for 2019 is …

And no one was more shocked than me when God laid it on my heart one day while I was cleaning my bathroom.

More.

My word for this year is more.

And this is exactly how my conversation with God went while scrubbing my bathtub … "Wait God. Hold up. What? More? More what? But my word last year was enough. MORE? What does that even mean!?" I even tried to laugh it off. But then I heard Him say to me "made for more."

MADE .. FOR .. MORE.

God created each of us with a purpose. He created us for more. And this year, I am focusing on that!

Dan & I both are so excited to see just what God has in store for our family. He has been & continues to be so good to us. Some would see it as us having to give up everything. Some may think "why in the world would you go from the house you have now to a small rental?" But God. Sure, we may have had to sacrifice a lot, but He has us exactly where He wants us. Just the other day, Dan said to me "I don't deserve any of this." And my words back to him were, "if anyone deserves it, it is you." This is a reward from God. We fought so hard for our marriage. Dan fought so hard for me. He had every reason to walk away from me almost 4 years ago but never once did he. He has loved me & protected my heart through it all. There is no one more deserving than him.

|Made for More shirt : ETSY|

ELLIE JOY IS ONE!

WEEKEND [2019] .. ON A WEDNESDAY

BUT GOD.

WEEKEND [2019]

DANCE BEDROOM MAKEOVER REVEAL

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