A Different Kind of Christmas...

This Christmas is markedly different from any other I’ve had. I have truly accepted the gift of grace given to me. Not just by God but by countless others who have walked through the tough stuff with me these last few years. I’ve been given the gift of actually knowing the heart of my husband and desiring to know him more. I could not imagine a better gift than a restored family. I thought we were beyond repair, but here we are new, and beautiful. I never thought I would WANT to, (and I mean REALLY WANT) spend every waking minute with my man, enjoying the complex creation that he is, but I do. Christmas for me, has already come, and for me it’s a time to celebrate what God has done for me, and set out to do with that very first Christmas 2014 years ago.

The other difference in this Christmas is that the Grimm family is for the FIRST TIME EVER, on a budget.

Many things led up to this.

A sermon series on what rich people do.

Credit card bills.

An obsession with Lululemon.

5 growing, HUNGRY children.

A new house.

And last but not least a desire to be obedient.

We’ve tried to do budgets before. It goes something like this:

We agree to a budget.

I blow it.

Tom sighs, asks me to do better next month.

I blow it again.

We give up.

The difference is this time, I am on to the enemy and his lies. I am not fooled by them anymore.

The lie: I am worth X amount of dollars.

I’d read an article some years ago on what it would cost to hire someone to do my job of raising our children, and so I began to believe I deserved that number.

The truth: I am irreplaceable. No amount of money will buy the kind of love I give to my family.

The other lie: if I owned X, I would be happy.

The truth: As soon as I own X, I will want Y and Z as well. Joy cannot be bought.

Lululemon: It’s a brand of workout clothes for those who don’t know. For those that do, you know why I coveted them so badly. I could make all kind of excuses about how they are the best, and how I didn’t actually pay that much for them…but it still comes down to I believed that if I owned X, I would be happy. But I am here to tell you I own the whole DANG GONE ALPHEBET and it didn’t make me any happier. In fact, I now cringe that the thought of the person I was when I felt I NEEDED the WEE ARE FROM SPACE PLUM RUN INSPIRE CROPS and MATCHING BRA to complete my collection.

WEE ARE FROM SPACE September Run Inspire Crops $87


Matching Bra $56

Whoa, this girl was WAY off track.


All this to tell you that we are on a budget and for the first time ever, my heart is in it 100%. This budget isn’t about getting out of debt. It’s about getting right. This budget is about glorifying God with HIS money.

I bought Lululemon to make my ass look better with HIS money. That kind of makes me sick to my stomach now. I am certainly not saying that Lululemon is bad, I am wearing some right now. I am saying my heart on the issue of our finances was so ugly. That was bad. I had an attitude of entitlement when really God GAVE me everything single thing I have, and He owes me nothing.

Getting right means that we may do without. We may not join you for dinner out (not that people ever really ask us out to dinner our family is intimidating enough to just have over), we may not be sending you a Christmas gift in shape of a $40 fruit basket. But we are praying for you, and we do love you. And we have committed as a family to be wise with the resources God has given us, and we hope that blesses you more than a fruit basket to know that our hearts desire is to be obedient to the Lord.

We just wanted to let you know before you wrapped up our presents and wrote our name on them. We’d be delighted if you gave us the gift of your prayers this year for Christmas instead of something tangible. We’d be delighted if around your Christmas tree you whispered a little prayer of thanks to God for what He’s done for our family this year. We know you love us, dear friends and family. And while your gifts are appreciated, they depreciate and end up at Goodwill before the year is over…Prayers are eternal and it’s an investment that only grows.