Poor, broke or moving on up. It's all about Mindset.

I'm sure if you looked back at our end of year financial records, you may say we had a few years of poverty.  My family has had some scary times and some survival times. 

Honestly, I have never once felt poor.  I felt short on cash or in pickle or even scared.  My family made choices and we counted cost and prioritized.  We have made and make terrible money decisions as we learned and we are learning how to handle the resources God gives us.

I never felt completely hopeless or without options. 

Why?  Why haven't I given up or let up on my dreams? 

My boys are asking these questions now as they venture in to their own dreams.  When they ask it, it sounds like, "Why don't you care about having money?" or "Did you know we were poor?"  "I bet according to the poverty levels etc. we were at one time."

I say and I mean, "What?  We have never been poor! Poor is a mindset and we have not been poor.  We have been short, but never poor.  We have always had options."

Poverty is a mindset.  A complete helplessness and hopelessness.  

Where a perception of being a victim or that life is unfair takes root.  

Weeds that have to be pulled continually to keep from propagating.  Weeds of despair, jealousy, envy, covetousness, laziness, helplessness, blame, complaining and negative thinking will spread their poisonous tentacles in to every area of our lives.

I've gotten complacent and stopped pulling the weeds from time to time and they quickly take over my thinking.

Character, truth,  skills, hope, faith, trust, vision, mission and obedience have to be planted and nurtured daily into the mindset we choose it to be.  

What helped?  What hidden lessons did I learn to strengthen my resolve? 

Lessons, not given in words, but in actions.

1.  I experienced hardship and struggle and overcoming and saw what overcoming looked like. I grew up on a ranch in the same community my grandparents homesteaded in. 

The empty homesteads on sections across the flats, were pointed out to me as a stark contrast to my Great Grandparent's little homestead still standing.  They raised 8 children in it during the depression.  My Grandmother's garden, chickens, livestock and a small farm fed them all.  

Grandparents on the other side homesteaded in a sod house on the northern end of the flats.  My Mom wouldn't let us forget about another Grandma across the river, who saved the farm by paying taxes with the egg money in her bra.

Or hearing my Dad as we watched the hail destroy crops and we lost the creek place say, "well, it will get better and there is always tomorrow."

2.   I watched my family adapt and readjust a thousand times.  Thinking outside the box and problem solving was a daily occurrence.  Flat tires, broken fences and bad weather seemed to give us many opportunities to practice! We learned to adapt in our own lives.

3.  My husband and I made covenants and commitments before our family begun.  

• I have watched my husband fulfill this commitment to put his family first over and over again. He made sure I finished my degree.  He made sure I stayed home with our babies.  He has worked two jobs for 27 years.  He has kept his marriage and his family together.

• We committed to be curious learners and pass a love of learning, literature and the Bible.  Our kids were read the great classics and the contemporary.  David read Tolken and CS Lewis and the classics.  I read Little House on the Prairie, history, autobiographies and biographies.  

• If we didn't know how to do it, we would learn it.  The boys watched my husband learn new skills and build his capacity to provide and teach and be with his boys.   He has taught himself to forge and make knives. He exposed the boys to classical, jazz, big band and of course classic rock.  And apologetics, theology, truth, archery and...remodeling.  He learned football, baseball and whatever game they were in to. 

• I learned to garden, process food and buy in bulk.  I shared my passion of animals, outdoors and meeting new people.  And they watched me take college classes continually.

4.   We are not afraid of work and believe any job is a learning opportunity.  We believed work was part of our kids' education.

5.  We didn't have TV in our house.  (We still don't.)


Truly, poverty is a mindset and so is feeling blessed and fulfilled.  I am wealthy beyond measure whether I make lots of money or just a little.