Pacing

This past week, and 24hrs have been pretty hard. I think it's not hard for me to admit it's hard, it's the actualy writing of it and submitting to the fact that it was indeed hard. giving myself permission to call it hard and not to try to sugar coat it and make it something it isn't. The beautiful thing about this past week was that I celebrated 35 years of life. about 20 of those I have known my husband and about 14 years of that i have loved him. He took me on a suprise date and we ate and danced and I felt so pursued. Ryan, if you are reading this, thank you-even when it's hard sometimes to love me, you do.
What was hard was Monday night and balancing our checkbook. Ryan is not working two jobs anymore and I don't get paid from my adjunt job till tomorrow which leaves us with all the bills paid, but very little left over. I just sat there, looking at the budget on my laptop thinking about what we were going to do. We have grocery money...we have gas money...the bills are paid...for that i am thankful and truly see that the lord is providing for us...we don't have creditors calling our home 24/7...but it was hard to sit down with ryan and to tell him the reality of really where we were at for the next couple weeks. Normally, i'd just bottle it all up, give him his allowance because if he had his allowance, he'd not ask about how we were doing with our budget. but, instead of absorbing all of the anxiety, i told him where we were at. we both sat there on the couch. quiet. he said, "well...okay." he talked a bit more about being thankful that we had what we needed and that we live on campus where we have meals in the cafe that are free in case we need to eat there, and we have family nearby that we use their laundry...but i just sat there as he left feeling so low. pacing in my mind through all of the failures...'we wouldn't be here if it wasnt for you...we would be in such a different place if after 8 years of living here...10 years of living with NO RENT we would be somewhere sooo different. what the f*&^ have you been doing all these years! you are worse off now than you were back then...' so on and so on...
i just was numb. i couldn't speak. even today as i type and consider that good friends really want to have dinner with us on saturday night to celebrate birthdays, and that i'm gone most of the weekend with a dear friend up at camp to help her out and retreat a bit...what are you up to, lord??? we can't afford to go out to dinner! i can't even buy coffee up at camp!!! sigh...
...and also...we have a meeting tonight with a missions organization that we LOVE and sooo believe in what they are doing to see if we would be a good fit with them... but are we waisting his time and money tonight? who are we to be missionaries when we have this debt that needs to be paid?
so, as always, i retreat to the shower. standing under the warmth of the water is soooo theraputic for me.
and i heard, "your debt doesn't define you, i define who you are."
i said back, "well...being a missionary could possibly one of the most amazing and yet scary things in life for me-to depend on someone else to provide for our family..."
then i stopped...in all my efforts to provide for myself, to fix our finances, to hide this all from ryan in an effort to fix it...where the hell did this get me? um...deeper in debt, deeper into lies, deeper into seeing that i am not in control of my life and if i try, i fail. the lord has provided for us. not me. not us. so how do we learn to use what we have and be good stewards of it? what is at the root of our spending habits? what are we trying to fill in an effort to avoid the cross or avoid our issues or avoid anything for that matter?
so, what are we to say to sam when we with him this evening???... i am still left pacing in my mind considering what the lord has for us...i wish selfishly that some check would just appear and make this all go away. but, that happened once for us and now we are back where we were, if not worse. if we cashed in all our assests, everything and paid off everything...would we still go and spend money without consideration? this is the question. it didn't solve anything before. will it now? no. we are learning moment by moment what it is to consider every purchase. is this the best price? is this the healthiest solution? do we have something around the house that can work just as good as if we went to purchase it new? this is a whole new language for me. a WHOLE new language.
i am learning to pause...i am learning to stop pacing in my mind and not allow myself to sucum to the voices in my head. i told ryan where we were at. that is a victory. he responded and we talked through it. he didn't storm off. he never has. i don't know where i got it in my head that he would ever do that...oh yeah-um...people in my life have done that and i just assumed he would too. i never gave him the benefit of the doubt.
yesterday was my daugther's good friend's birthday. it was butterfly themed. i would have gone out and bought her $20 worth of stuff...but i made her a hair clip that emily chose the fabric for...emily wanted to wear butterflies,so i sewed on butterflies onto her shirt with the left over fabric from her friend's clip...and i dug around and found watercolors and a journal of blank pages for her friend to paint in. Lord-you are so good! i didn't have to pay a dime for her gift! i even re-used wrapping!!
out of all of this processing (thanks for bearing with my processing!) is this:
each day is a new day. he makes all things new each day. that is including me. i bear his image. i don't bear a huge red "D" on my shirt telling the world i'm a debtor. however, aren't we all? aren't we all in debt to the one who saved our life from the dominion of darkness? i could never repay what he has done for me. how can i think that i can repay what i've gotten myself into here on earth without him? lord, help me to continue to see that you forgive our transgressions and deliver us from evil and that this is not my kingdom to control, but your kingdom. may your kingdom come and your will be done, not mine.