Dollars and Sense
Money is so empowering and so limiting. Nathan and I finally finished analyzing our spending for last year, and everything we budgeted was right on. Wooohoooo! Since we haven't really tracked as closely as we should have, this was a great confirmation. Of course, the budget we laid out didn't have all the categories it should have, but those things outside the categories we felt comfortable with too. Woohooo again! So now we look to the year ahead in light of all the mass of sticky-note data. Timber frame dreaming, trips to visit family, that comprehensive auto insurance that saps $75/month, new pots and pans, and a dozen more are all up for grabs. A horse is not even on the goals list for this year. Even having crossed out several items, there are still more ideas than funds.
Here's where the rubber meets the road. The numbers are crunched, the bills are paid, what's left is the gift. The money I spend on electricity and groceries is so easy...but that portion left over gets fretted over and stressed about. Why is it that what's undeserved is the hardest to give up?
posted by Christy Randalll @ 6:28 PM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
Isn't it all a gift, really? Is any of it deserved? One of the difficult benifits to mission work is the removal of the effort = money link. No matter how hard we work, serve, strive, the income is still from God's hand. It is a concept that we have embraced in "normal" life. It is only superficially that our efforts create gain, and the hard-earned gain in funds is often a loss of time, energy, community, and space. In a way, a loss of life.
Sorry Christy, I did not mean to be a downer. I don't mean death, but just a loss of that bit of living we trade for money.
No worries. After I posted I was revising my thoughts already. There are many in the world who work and never receive payment, some by choice and some not. The gift I was referring to was the gift of having money left over after the bills are paid which so often causes the attitude of entitlement so prevalent in America.
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