debt and grace

So, I've been thinking a lot about debt lately. In my last post I announced that we are selling our house to help relieve our debt problem. On the advice of our Realtor, we are going to lease the house until we will be able to move back in (in three to four years after we pay off our student loans). We've been apartment hunting and let me tell you, it's a kick in our pride pants. Quite humbling. We aren't looking at the fancy apartments of our past, but the ones that will really help us to save the kind of money we need to save in order to pay off our debt. It just ain't pretty. 


Now that D-Day is approaching (which is August 1, the day the tenant moves into our house), I'm getting pretty depressed about the whole ordeal.


My thoughts recently have pretty much revolved around this. I keep comparing our situation to that of friends who made better financial choices, and I just beat myself up with "if only..." 


As my thoughts wander (I have a lot of time to think while I'm breastfeeding), I sometimes dream of the "ultimate" situation in which we could move into a sweet apartment and keep all of our stuff and then get our student loans paid off super fast so that we could move back into our house in just a couple of years instead of four. But my conclusion is always "Why would we be blessed like that when we have been so negligent?" Basically, we don't deserve that kind of blessing. We had our time to do things the right way, and we didn't. Now we'll just have to work with what we can, do what we can do, and be open to learning what God has in store for us.


But God always shows me his perspective. I was playing with Savannah yesterday when it clicked. I was having one of those parental moments in which you stare at your child in awe of how amazing he/she is. God plainly told me that I AM blessed. As in the present--I am currently being blessed. My marriage is a blessing. My child--just her mere existence--is a blessing. My family and incredible friends are all blessings in my life. And most importantly my salvation is a blessing. When I think about how Jesus' sacrifice covers my sins--really think about it--I don't understand it. Why would God choose to do that? Why would he sacrifice his son to save me? When I slam the steering wheel in anger at the long red light, I am reminded of my sin. When I speak condescendingly to my husband, I am reminded of my sin. When I laugh along with a comedian's racial/sexual/immoral joke, I am reminded of my sin. His sacrifice far exceeds the debt I owe. I certainly do not deserve Christ's sacrifice, but I know I am blessed beyond measure to have received it.


In the past three months, I have realized that I will never, in any way, ever be able to express to Savannah how much I love her. I doubt she will ever know the extent to which I love her until she has her own child. I can glimpse God's perspective in this--how his love far exceeds anything we can ever fathom. Those who believe in him are "sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the down payment of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it" (Ephesians 1:13-14). And when I get bogged down in the mundane, worrying about my situation, I can look at the Cross and sing with thankfulness that he has showered me with his grace. 

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong, a perfect plea:
A great High Priest, whose name is Love,
Who ever lives and pleads for me.

My name is graven on his hands,
My name is written on his heart;
I know that while in heaven he stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair,
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look, and see him there
Who made an end of all my sin.
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/s/shane_and_shane/before_the_throne_of_god_above.html ]
Because a sinless Savior died,
My sinful soul is counted free;
For God, the Just, is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me
To look on Him and pardon me

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Praise the One,
Risen Son of God!

Behold him there, the risen Lamb
My perfect, spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I am,
The King of glory and of grace!

One in himself, I cannot die
My soul is purchased by his blood
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ, my Savior and my God
With Christ, my Savior and my God

lyrics by Shane and Shane

a different kind of american dream

We're moving on down... to the east side... to a mediocre apartment... on the first floor. It doesn't quite sound as celebratory as the theme song from "The Jeffersons," but at this point I can't be picky. 


Yes, we are moving. Selling the old homestead. Now for the lengthy explanation. 


I'll start by saying that if you are in the market for buying a house, please, please learn from our mistakes!! Wide-eyed, with a bank account full of new money from a sale on Chaz's flipped store (Lenny's), we embarked on our adventure. We were the only couple in our close group of friends that weren't homeowners, and we let that play with our emotions (mistake #1). On our first day of house-hunting, we fell in love with a little country house on Country Glen. I loved it as soon as we walked in the door. Hardwood floors in the living room, vaulted ceiling, big windows, and a little Tiffany light fixture hanging from the wood-paneled ceiling under the loft. LOVE! It had character, like us. 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths and room for the 2.5 kids we planned to have. Perfect. And the back yard... don't get me started. I'm not even going to write about it. 


Oh, there's more. 2 car payments. Loads on student loans. Not enough to make that 20% down payment (this was 2008 when they were handing out loans like Air Heads, pun intended)...(oh, and mistake #2). But let's think logically here--we were making an investment! Our apartment (fancy shmancy, by the way) was about to go up on rent. We'd be cramped and paying only a couple hundred less than a mortgage. On the other hand, we could have a whole house for our animals to run around in. Hello?? Where's the problem?


Well, the problem was that we simply didn't plan ahead. Even though we had talked about me being a stay-at-home mom someday, we weren't thinking about it. I definitely wasn't in the mindset of becoming pregnant, and I loved my job. Chaz's five-year plan was gaining traction. We were really making it. But our biggest mistake was that we didn't plan on one important thing. LIFE. It happens. Chaz lost his job, career, five-year plan. I began to loathe going to work each day and wondered what I was supposed to do. 


We know now. That thing we had talked about even before we were married--me staying home with our kids--is happening. I can't imagine doing anything else. And I will advocate that it CAN be done! Naysayers will argue that you can't have a decent lifestyle on one income. I argue that you can as long as you plan on it. So now we are backtracking on the typical American dream. We're ditching the perfect house on the perfect cul-de-sac for a 2 bedroom apartment in order to dig ourselves out of debt. I grew up living on a "month-to-month" income. I can remember times when we didn't know where we were going to live. I remember going to the food pantry. It's not the life I wanted for my kids. So we are making this sacrifice now, saving the moolah on our mortgage and rolling it all toward our smallest debt so we can attack it with gazelle-like intensity. Then in three to four years we will be able to pursue home ownership again. 


You see, my American dream has to change. Racking up tons of debt and living from month-to-month so we can have something we can't afford anymore isn't working for us. Paranoia is not a peaceful state of mind. Sure, my going back to work would solve some of our financial woes. But like I said in my last post, I know God has called me to stay at home with my child. And really we could have solved our financial woes long ago by heeding the Proverb "the rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender" (22:7). There's more like that in the Bible. Why didn't we look at the ultimate instruction manual? Maybe we just didn't want to. 


What we are doing is nothing heroic. We are just trying to make up for the poor decisions we made. And when I look at my little Savannah, I know it is and will always be worth it. 

servant

I've been stagnant for too long. Sure, I just had a kid, yeah I know. But I'm talking about spiritual stagnation. God has done so much work in my life these past couple years especially, but what have I done? I have allowed him to work, sure, but isn't there supposed to be more than that? What have I done for him? I've gotta say, not a whole lot. 


What I realized is that my daughter is the one who is prompting these feelings. Nobody can tell you about the weight of responsibility you feel after having a child. I'm supposed to be a role model for her--the model of what a woman who loves Christ looks like. That's crazy! Sure she's just an infant... so I should give myself a break. I've got at least a year before she starts really watching me, right? Well, maybe, but I'm sure it will be better to get into the practice of godliness now. 


The truth is my God has done enough for me already. Not only did Christ die for me, but he has imparted grace and knowledge to me by stretching and growing me. Being patient with me--being a parent to me. Now it is my time--not to do life on my own, but to serve God by serving others with the grace and knowledge he has given me. The one big area that I have lacked in servant-hood is in my relationship with my husband. 


Oh, this is hard. It's hard not only to realize it but to admit it and put it out there. So God's design for marriage is that the husband leads his wife and she submits to him. And if the husband is the leader then that makes HIM ultimately the one responsible for his family to God. If God says, "Hey, you messed up here" then that is the husband's bad, not the wife's. This is demonstrated in the first marriage relationship of Adam and Eve. Even though it was Eve who first took of the forbidden fruit, God sought out Adam to explain what happened. So it should be comforting to me, as a wife, to know that God holds my husband responsible for our family. But it doesn't.


God cursed Eve (and therefore all women) saying, "Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you" Gen. 3:16. I desire his role of authority but don't want the responsibility of it, just as Eve blamed the serpent for deceiving her rather than taking the responsibility for disobeying God as she did (Gen. 3:13). If I am to be honest with myself and before God I must admit that I have never fully given the reigns of responsibility to my husband because I am afraid to give up that control. In essence I have not fully trusted God in handling my marriage because I have not completely trusted my husband. 


In the past year God has called me to trust him again and again without knowing what the future holds (I think that's the definition of faith). He called me to quit my job. He called me to believe that he would give me a child even in my desperate, dark moments of doubt. And he has shown me why he asked those things of me. I know I'm supposed to be a stay-at-home mom. Surprisingly, though, I'm finding that it's not just about being there to raise my daughter. It's about me giving up the control and fulfillment I found in providing financially for our family. It's about totally trusting that my husband will provide for us. It's about making sacrifices in the way that we live so that I can obey God's call on my life. It's not about others changing, it's about me changing. And it is HARD! 


I'd like to think that God would give me a break for a few years. Just let me sip tea on the front porch swing and take a load off. But he's not about that. He is about "testing [our] faith" to "produce steadfastness" or consistency and faithfulness (James 1:2). If I expect my life to change, I've gotta move out of the way and let my Lord work in me. The best way for me to do that is to be a servant.