Equipping young women professionals with young families to find fulfillment, contentment and joy as mothers and home makers without losing sight of who they are as women.

Volume 09, Issue 11: Hope for a Comeback

Reflecting on last week's "Fortitude in Relationships" post, I thought it's necessary to also demonstrate that we always have hope for a comeback after we mess up, that there's hope in spite of our shortcomings. Borrowing from the YouVersion Bible study plan I referred to in last week's post, let's take a journey through David's mess and how God helped him through the consequences of his mess thereafter.

With my own twists and additions to what was shared by Sherene Ellen Rajaratnam from the Bible, David committed adultery with Bathsheba when he was supposed to be in the battlefield with his troops as was the custom of Kings in his day. When Bathsheba became pregnant, David tried to hide his mistake instead of admitting it. Eventually he arranged the murder of Bathsheba's husband Uriah to conceal his mistake. He then took Bathsheba as his wife and the baby born to them from the affair died immediately. However, God still blessed David and Bathsheba with another son, Solomon, who become the heir to his throne.

When David was confronted by God through prophet Nathan, he repented and went through the consequences of his actions. Yes, he had to live through seeing his son rape his daughter and then reject her. He had to see murder inside his own family. He had to run away from his palace, in fear for his life from his own son. He had to hear how his son slept with his concubines in the open for everyone to see. Instead of rejoicing the death of his son who was trying to wipe him out, he grieved, which brought confusion to his men and the kingdom as his family's losses overwhelmed him. He failed to encourage the men who risked their lives for him against his son. His life seemed a mess.

Despite all that drama, this same David was called "a man after God's own heart". This was because of his response to God's confrontation, in addition to how he lived his life before the Lord in general. David accepted and confessed his sin when God confronted him through his prophet. He did not blame anyone or give excuses but took responsibility and repented wholeheartedly.

David willingly went through the consequences of his sin with God's help. He did not get angry with God but went through life getting his strength from God. This shows us that there can be healing in our lives when we respond to God's call with repentance. Even after bad choices, God will help us find healing and purpose in life when we start trusting him with our choices.

What stands out most for me in this story is that life didn't stop for David after he messed up. When he repented, he continued walking in step with God. God also blessed his marriage with Bathsheba and gave him a heir to his throne from that relationship. A heir could have come from any one of David's other sons from his other wives, but God chose the son from the wife David had stolen and killed to cover up his sin for! This reveals the vastness of God's mercies towards us. Yes, David had to face the consequences of his sin but he went on with the business of living by God's grace, and so can we.

We make messes in a myriad of things from sin, to relationships, to finances, to career and business and so forth. It's wonderful to know that no matter the mess, or its magnitude, we can always recover and be restored by God's grace. If we work with Him, God is able to see us through the consequences of our mess while establishing us in the blessings He has ordained for us to walk in. No matter the mess, there is hope for a comeback.

For His Glory,

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 09, Issue 10: Fortitude in Relationships

A few mornings ago, one of the plans I was using for Bible study brought a new awakening of the significance of fortitude in relationships, that it takes being confident in where you stand with someone to recover well from a mess. In one incident, King David messed up big time, and when God confronted him through His prophet, he repented wholeheartedly, but he wasn't left crushed and detached from God.

In the 51st chapter of the book of Psalms, we see that David's was gravely remorseful for his sin. I have read this portion of scripture several times before and used it for my own repentance and worship sessions, but this time around something different came to the fore of my mind as I read it. What impressed me in this study is that David didn't turn God's confrontation into self-condemnation. Rather, he used it to repent and move on with God.

You see, when our mess is found out, it's possible for us to pronounce ourselves unworthy of the relationship we have created a mess in and stay away, especially when it's a big mess. Even after being extended forgiveness for the mess, we can refuse to forgive ourselves and deny ourselves the privilege of continuing to enjoy the relationship.

David didn't pull himself away from God after the confrontation. He instead acknowledged his mess and asked God to wipe his slate clean there and then, so that he could continue enjoying his relationship with Him. He prayed, "Soak me in your laundry and I’ll come out clean, scrub me and I’ll have a snow-white life. Tune me in to foot-tapping songs, set these once-broken bones to dancing. Don’t look too close for blemishes, give me a clean bill of health. God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life. Don’t throw me out with the trash or fail to breathe holiness in me. Bring me back from gray exile, put fresh wind in my sails! Give me a job teaching rebels your ways so the lost can find their way home. Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God, and I’ll sing anthems to your life-giving ways. Unbutton my lips, dear God; I’ll let loose with your praise.” Psalm 51:7-15 MSG

I believe David's response could have been different if he hadn't built a strong relationship with God prior to this incident. If it weren't for the many years from his youth drawing near to God while tending his father's sheep, pouring out his heart to God through the songs he composed and the music he played on his harp, and consequently walking in step with God all through his life up to the point of his big mess, he could have felt unworthy after his mess. David was a worshipper at heart. We know of how once he danced before the Lord until his clothes fell off. The Psalms of David are full of tellings of his close relationships with God. We can therefore say that David was close enough to God to know the greatness of His steadfast love and mercies.

Because of the fortitude he had in his relationship with God, David didn't banish himself from the presence of God after his mess. Rather he said, "God, make a fresh start in me, put fresh wind in my sails. Commute my death sentence then I'll sing anthems to your life-giving ways. I'll let loose with your praise". In other words, David was saying, "God forgive me, make me clean again and restore me back to yourself so I can go back to praising you, just like I did before. I have messed up God, revive my spirit so I can enjoy being in your presence again, as well as teach others who mess up like me your ways, so they too can find their way back to you."

That had to take the strength of a strong relationship with God that David had built over time. Without that, he could have banished himself from ever experiencing the joys of being in God's presence again. We must have that kind of fortitude in our relationships with God and people, so that when we mess up, we have the courage and confidence to pursue forgiveness and restoration.

For His Glory,

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 09, Issue 09: You Are Worth Being Kind To

I remember the reaction I once received two or so years ago from telling a friend that I go to bed at a certain time at night in order to wake up at a certain time in the morning. She dismissed me and said she wakes up very early but also stays up late every other night. To her, it was silly of me to care about how much sleep I get, that what counts is getting up early. This friend is among a couple of other people who think it's silly for adults to have a sleep schedule.

Do you run a ton of errands all at once on your free day such that when you are done you are extremely exhausted? Are you woken up by a jolting alarm? I recently watched a movie where this old man would be woken up by a jolting alarm every morning. The sound of the alarm jolted him to a sitting position looking extremely shocked with eyes and mouth wide open. I am still laughing as I recall the scene, especially the shocked look on his face. This reminded me of myself not so long ago when I used an alarm app called alarmy, with annoying loud ringtones to wake up.

One time a friend of mine had my phone with her overnight. The annoying alarm woke her up very early in the morning and she struggled to get it to go off for about an hour. She was so mad at me I still laugh when I remember the incident. I still use the app but only as a backup, and with very low refreshing music.

The way alarm clocks work traditionally is that we decide what time we want to wake up the next morning, set the alarm and go to sleep. In a good number of cases, the alarm sounds when we are still asleep, in the middle of a sleep cycle. When this happens, we wake up groggy, sometimes feeling as if we have been run over by a truck. We force ourselves out of bed to turn off the alarm before using all the resolve we have left to stay awake and do what we need to do.

An alarm clock is a good tool but shouldn't be what we rely upon to wake us up indefinitely,  unless we set it to sound around the same time our bodies naturally wake up. I use sleep cycles to guide what time I should wake up or when I should go to bed to wake up at a certain time. In case this is new to you, find out how this bedtime calculator works at sleepyti.me

Each of us has different rest needs. Generally, a good night's sleep consists of 5-6 complete sleep cycles. One complete sleep cycle lasts 90 minutes. It's kind to find out how much sleep your body needs each night and allow yourself to wake up naturally at the end the sleep cycle you have determined to go by. This way you don't necessarily need an alarm clock to wake you up because your body will be awake at the end of the cycle. You can now use a gentle sounding alarm as a backup, to sound right after your body has woken up.

Unless you border on laziness whereby you would lazy around in bed even after the completion of your set sleep cycles, in which case you would fall back asleep, this system would work well for you. You will get the number of hours of sleep you choose to have and wake up feeling refreshed and in good shape to tackle your day. Our bodies respond and adjust better when we go to bed at the same time each night and wake up at the same time each morning every other day of the week. This is not for you if you are the kind of person who keeps hitting the snooze button on your alarm.

Waking up unharrassed is just one simple dose of kindness to oneself that will warm your heart. Another simple dose of treating yourself with kindness is avoiding overloading yourself with tasks, trying to fit in so much into one day. Be kind to yourself by dividing up errands into manageable portions, batching them up and spreading them out across multiple days or weekends. Even errands that are fun like clothes shopping can be a drain if we combine them with several other errands in one day. When I do my weekly meal prep on Friday afternoons, I make sure to not take on too much. I plan ahead and spread out extras across two Fridays.

Do you take on more load than you should? Have you made yourself everything to everybody? Are you doing things for your kids that they are old enough to do for themselves? Do you find yourself saying yes to every invitation even when you know you would rather say no to some in order to have a weekend to yourself? Do you work through lunch hour when you are entitled to a break? Do you deny yourself reasonable treats on your budget, treats to reward yourself for working hard and saving smart? Do you celebrate other people's birthdays but not your own?

There are many ways to practice being kind to yourself. One of the ways I treat myself with kindness is by retiring to my room at a certain time every evening to get ready for bed. Whenever my son sees the notification pop up on my phone, he shouts, "mum, it's time for you to head back to your room." Having a bedtime may not be relevant for you, but think of the ways you overload, deny or mistreat yourself and come up with ideas to make some changes. You are worth being kind to. Carry yourself in a way that communicates kindness to yourself. Develop habits that will ensure that you treat yourself with kindness every day.

For His Glory,

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 09, Issue 08: Conquering Our Finances Part IV

We are now ready to spend our 6,000 units, program it across immediate spend and future spend categories as we wrap up this series. Immediate spend is straight forward because it's right in front of us day in day out. It mainly comprises of our basic living expenses such as food, housing, utilities such as electricity and water, transportation, and grooming; as well as non-basic ones such as internet and entertainment. These are immediate because we pay for them either day by day or week by week or month by month.

We have other expenses that we don't necessarily pay for within the week or month of receiving our earnings. These include but not limited to school fees, insurance, maintenance and repairs, memberships, school books and accessories, extra curricular activities, clothing, vacations, personal development, support to family and friends and charitable contributions. These are things we pay for at different times within the year and should therefore be on our monthly budgets even though we don't pay for them until a later point in the year.

Ever wondered why some regular income earning parents find the January back to school time financially stressful? They have to come up with school fees, buy schools books, uniforms and accessories while still keeping up with their regular weekly and monthly expenses such as food and housing. Life is much easier when we acknowledge what all our expenses for a year add up to, and set aside money to cover each of them month by month, or at the frequency with which we receive our earnings, irrespective of when the bills fall due.

Managing the money for our future spend tickets in a separate bank account distinct from the account where funds for our immediate spend tickets sits ensures that we don't overdraw on future spend resources. Seeing all the cash in one place may have us think we have a lot of money to spend at the moment, when in fact we need to reserve part of it to make future payments. You don't want to find yourself using your school fees money to make contributions in a friend's fundraising event, and then have to frantically come up with the fees when they fall due.

We want our budgets to have everything we could possibly need to pay for, including a kitty for contributions to funerals, or a wedding gift for a friend, because these things are part of our lives and require our participation when they come up. I recommend budgeting for such as a contingency reserve to pull from when they come up. This reserve forms part of our future spend budget category because we don't necessarily use it every other month.

From our 6,000 units, let's assume our family's annual school fees budget is 1,200 units. It follows that our monthly school fees budget is 100 units, which we transfer to our future spend bank account every month when we are paying our bills. We do the same for all our future spend tickets like insurance, maintenance and repairs, memberships, school books, uniforms and accessories, extra curricular activities, clothing, personal development and vacation. When these bills fall due, we won't be under any pressure to deliver.

We must budget for future spend items like we do for immediate spend tickets because we are not expecting money to fall from trees when they fall due. We keep the money for these in a separate checking or savings account. After we pay our tithe, housing and utility bills, our current bank account for our immediate spend tickets should be left with only the cash we need to pay for immediate items on our budget like food, transport and pocket money.

Therefore from our 6,000 units available for spending, if our budget says we need 2,500 units a month for future spend tickets and 3,500 units for immediate spend tickets, we transfer 2,500 units to our future spend bank account and manage the rest in our immediate spend account. Our immediate spend tickets are payable by different means. Some are payable by wire transfer or cheque, others by card, and still others by mobile money or cash.

It then follows that we transfer the amount for the ones payable by mobile money at once to our phones, and withdraw the cash at once to pay for the ones payable by cash, and keep the cash in labeled envelopes in our purse to use as we go. Ideally, we should keep cash payments as limited as possible. For me, I keep 3 cash envelopes, one for church offerings that I pull from every Sunday, a second one for my bi-monthly market shopping, and a third one for my pocket money and kid's allowance.

Irrespective of your level of earning, include every aspect of your life in your budget and live within your means. We have duly emphasized that we finance quarterly and annual payments monthly or at the frequency with which we receive our earnings. Your insurance bill, school fees or needing to take a vacation shouldn't be a cause of stress because you put aside money for them with every month's earnings.

You shouldn't be good with money because you want to be rich. You should be good with money because you want the freedom to live the life that makes you happy. We have seen that an emergency fund is the first step to making that happen. Be sure to have it as a line item in your budget that you contribute towards with every earnings. Unexpected influx of funds should go directly to your emergency reserve. The second step is saving for investments and future use, and the last step is maintaining an adequate budget for future spend tickets as you spend on immediate spend tickets. Conquer your finances by diligently following these three steps and you will be on your way to financial independence.

For His Glory,

Lillian Chebosi

Volume 09, Issue 07: Conquering Our Finances Part III

Picking up from part II of this series, we said it's more efficient to manage the four main categories of our budget in four separate folders, that is, bank accounts or whatever kind of folders each of us prefers. It actually doesn't cost anything to have a bank account today if you maintain the stipulated balance. We figured out how to manage our savings in two separate bank accounts and now we want to figure out how to best manage our immediate spending and future spending. But before we get to that, let's talk a little more about emergency savings.

The reason we separate our investment savings from our emergency savings is because we don't want to risk investing our emergency reserves in a long term investment vehicle that we can't access in the immediate term should we need it. We want our money to work for us, and not be out of reach when an emergency strikes. We don't want to hustle around trying to borrow to finance emergencies when we have resources stashed away in investments. That wouldn't be smart. We want to be able to sort ourselves out when we need to and not be desperate and at the mercy of others when we have already done the hard work of saving.

Our emergency fund should sit in an account or investment vehicle that we can access without notice, or within a few hours. We just need to be disciplined enough to access it only for the emergencies we defined the fund to be for when we set It up. Consider putting it in an interest bearing savings account. Bank accounts don't generate much interest, but that's okay because growth is not the point of this fund. The purpose of an emergency fund is to finance unexpected but defined emergency expenses.

There are different emergencies that we could find ourselves in. They could range from having to settle a loved one's big medical bill in the absence of insurance, to abruptly losing a job or business in absence of alternative sources of income. Let's focus on the latter. The question that comes to mind next is, what is the minimum level of emergency reserve we should aim to maintain at any given point?

Since it's hard to tell how fast we can secure another job should we abruptly lose the only one we have, the ideal level to aim for while still at our current job is an amount significant enough to cover our basic living expenses for 6 to 12 months. This implies that if your basic living expenses for a month cost 4,000 units, you want to accumulate a minimum of 24,000 to 48,000 units. This would afford you enough breathing space until you secure your next income generating activity. Sometimes people stay for several months or years before securing another job, so the more we can accumulate in this reserve, the better.

Enough with savings, now we can talk about spending our 6,000 units. Everyone spends money on certain things. The difference comes in whether or not we are keeping track of the things we spend money on, we are happy with how much we are spending on each of them, and we are aware of the impact they have on our current financial well being and future financial independence.

Just a few weeks ago I finally admitted to myself that it's time to replace my old car that has served me well for 10 years. It needs to go because it's getting to the point where if I keep it any longer it could turn into a money pit, take me over the budget I have set aside for vehicle maintenance. What is clear in my mind about the potential purchase is what the value of the car I pick would translate to in terms of insurance and maintenance costs. I am already used to a rather friendly old car's insurance and maintenance budget that I want to be sure to not digress very far from just for the sake of having new car.

Prior to making a new acquisition, it's not enough to consider just the initial cost. We must think of the recurrent costs the acquisition will require thereafter. Unless our income goes up, increase in spend means reduction in savings. For my car situation, I had to consider how much more I am willing to spend on insurance and maintenance so that I pick my next car wisely, fully aware of what I am getting myself into. I had to consider the amount of units I am willing to reduce my savings by in order to accommodate the amount I have to top up to maintain a new car. Even when our income increases, it's not smart to up our spend. An increase in earnings should be an opportunity to save, give and invest more.

We have touched on one of future spending items to have on our budget for our 6,000 units, that is vehicle insurance and maintenance. I have seen people squabble when their insurance falls due and wonder how come they didn't know the payment was coming up. That's because most people only budget for their immediate spending then have to hustle to pay for future spending tickets when they fall due. Let's discuss all matters future spending and immediate spending in part IV.

For His Glory,

Lillian Chebosi