Financial Peace

Question: Are you at peace with where you are financially? There was a time in life where Brian and Lisa Hardy would have answered that question with an emphatic, NO! Brian and Lisa, and their son Alan are three of our newest church members and in getting to know them I learned that Brian has a passion for helping people gain control over their finances through Financial Peace University. This passion was born from an experience the Hardy’s had several years ago.

Lisa says, “Our money management was fairly one-sided with Brian making most of the decisions. We were doing all right, but there was tension regarding money at times. We were heavily invested in real estate and when the 2008 economic downturn happened our financial planning was thrown into a tailspin. The debt and stress began taking a toll on us and we were making little to no progress. We were introduced to Financial Peace University (FPU) in October 2011 and we decided to use their principals to change the direction of our finances. We added up all of our non-mortgage related debt and it was $107,000. Our plan was to try to pay it off in three years. Something that was important to us was to make sure we continued to tithe during this time. We knew this was going to be a long process, but with the Lord’s help, we believed we could do it. In early 2012 we decided to sell a lot we owned at Lake Anna. The trouble was there were over 2,700 other lots for sale at the same time! Despite the number of lots for sale we actually received a cash contract for the Lake Anna lot on September 15th, 2012. Also during this time, I had a nice surprise when my incentive pay increased by 10% of my salary and that was in addition to a cost of living raise. With my raise and with the sale of the lot we believed we could actually move up the time frame for paying off our debt to May 2013, instead of September 2014. But then the unexpected happened.”

 

Brian continues the story, “On Monday, September 17, 2012, Lisa’s parents came over to let our dog Maisy out while we were at work. They came in the back door and were greeted with water pouring through the ceiling and an inch of water on the kitchen floor. I remember standing in the driveway after the Servpro truck pulled away at 10 pm and Lisa and I both said the words from scripture and popular song on Christian radio at the time “God works all things together for my good” and God did just that. The lot closed quickly and we had the sale proceeds in the bank by October 7th. The insurance check we needed to rebuild the house was lost by Bank of America. So we used the proceeds of the lot sale to pay for the rebuilding of the house and would you believe the proceeds of the lot sale were almost an exact dollar match to our insurance settlement! What a blessing it was to have the lot sell and close at the precise time we needed that money. If the lot had sold sooner we would have already used the proceeds to pay the debt. If it sold any later we would not have had funds to rebuild our house and we would not have completed the house before the holidays. Because I work for a builder the insurance company let me be the general contractor and that saved us that margin. Would you like to guess the amount it saved? It was enough to pay off the balance of our debt on December 21, 2012. In 14 months we put a fork in $107,000 in debt and I had no idea the burden that it was until I felt what it was to be free from that non-mortgage debt. We are truly blessed, and thankful for the leading hand of God and we have a great anticipation for our future journey.”

 

I love Brian and Lisa’s story. They were faithful to the Lord and the Lord was certainly faithful to them. The Lord guided and provided for them, even through trying circumstances.

 

Perhaps you’re going through some trying circumstances with your finances. The good news is financial peace is on the way, literally. Beginning on Thursday, June 14th Brian is going to lead a “Financial Peace University” class at Bethel. The class will meet in the evening for 9 weeks. You will learn a number of financial principals designed to help get you out of debt and on your way to financial peace. If you’d like to know more about the class please contact Brian at 804-432-8728. Finally, I’d like to welcome Brian, Lisa, and Alan to the Bethel family. May God bless them and may God bless Bethel Church. Amen.