Show Me the Money!

So this is P.T. taking over Bonnie's blog today with kind of part blog entry, part journal, part Gethsemane-esque prayer. Yesterday Bonnie shared her side of our story over the past year and her struggle to not jump in and problem solve. Today I share my side of the story. Her problem wasn't about the money...it was mine.

8/3/16 - Preface

This year has been...challenging. 

And that's not the kind of thing that I let on to easily.

But I'm crumbling. In a good way.

Earlier this year I heard a pastor spin the phrase, "my biggest enemy is my inner me." And I definitely believe there's truth to that statement. But then today I was reading Scary Close by Donald Miller (who I think is brilliant) after having also recently read a couple chapters in When People are Big and God is Small--and I've learned that while I definitely have an enemy in my inner me, not many people have access to that part of me. As much as I battle an inner me, a long time ago I created an outer me--a theatrical performer...my candy coated shell of happiness, humor, and having-it-all-togetherness to protect my gooey center. Most of you know my outer me. And while my life is not a total masquerade, I definitely know how to put on a good show. Afterall that gooey center is home to my flaws and fears and failures. Shame and guilt that I use the outer me to cover. 

But there's a crack in my shell. And I'm here to expose what's inside.

Last May Bonnie stepped down from her full-time job at NewSpring. A job she enjoyed surrounded by people she loved. It honestly didn't make sense for her to step down--she's felt called to work in full-time vocational ministry since she was a teenager. It's what she can only describe as a "tie your shoe moment." We love the Bourne movies, and in the trilogy's closer, amnesiac multi-lingual super soldier Jason Bourne is helping guide a civilian reporter away from some bad guys who are trying to kill him. Bourne is communicating with the reporter by phone watching the scenario unfold, and at one point, tells the reporter to bend over and tie his shoe even though his shoe is already tied. It's not that Bourne actually needed the reporter to tie his shoe--he needed the reporter to duck down out of the line of sight of the approaching hit men there to take his life. The reporter is oblivious. He simply trusts that Jason Bourne has a better vantage point and a plan and ultimately follows through with his nonsensical demand. That's where we were with Bonnie quitting her job--tie your shoe. As a result we've been living for 14 months on about half the income that we had been making.

Meanwhile, since January of this year the needle on our savings gauge has been dropping faster than the British pound. Our roof had 3 leaks. A/C goes out. Cars needed repair. Both life insurance policies came up for renewal. HOA dues. Car registrations and so on. And that's before we pay the $250 dentist bill for Maddox's two cavities that got filled Monday.

The bloodletting of our savings account has come after cinching up our financial belts. We grocery shop at Aldi despite our kids' complaints about eating "Cocoa Peanut Butter Spheres" instead of Reese's Puffs. We cut cable for the first time since we were first married and made a combined $16,000/year. And it's football season. We coupon and cut corners and say "no" to our kids (and ourselves) way more than we say yes. Our last "luxury" is our membership at the Y.

As a result of our penny pinching, I've been living for the last year envying high schoolers coming into Starbucks ordering their venti soy chai dirty latte while I work from the booth sipping on my water debating on whether or not to use my son's $5 gift card he's forgotten about. I horde gift cards and stretch them out as long as I can. I missed lunch the other day and ended up running in a gas station to grab a 110 calorie snack sized teriyaki beef jerky (with 20 grams of protein), only to have buyer's remorse once I realized I spent $4.99 on it.

 

A word I've used a lot this year is "handcuffed." That's honestly how I've felt much of the time. Focusing a lot on what I can't have, seeing what everybody else seemingly DOES have. I even told my wife I resented her. To her face. There's a Hallmark moment for you. But in my desperate thinking, if she hadn't "been obedient" and quit her job, who's to say we would be in this situation? My head has had a hard time resolving what my heart knows--that it's not Bonnie's fault that I feel deprived. 

In the midst of the dirty struggle, it has become frighteningly easy to forget what I do have. That also this year, our car Ellie the Element that we've had longer than our kids went to the great scrap yard in the sky, and we had no idea how we were going to get another car. And somebody just gave us one. Walked into our house and started signing over the title to not just any car, but the kind of car Bonnie had been praying for. How easy it is to forget that I've gotten to go with my family on paid for trips to the mountains and the beach this summer. Or the brand new watch I'm wearing from the $250 shopping spree I got to take for being named Staff Member of the Month. Or the tickets Bonnie and I were given to go watch the Gators play in Columbia.

I'm telling you...it really is hard to serve both God and money. 

Tired of seeing my spirits fall with each drop in our savings, I try to step up to lead our family. How do I fix this?

For big decisions I tend to devote intentional time to prayer and fasting. It's not that I'm some spiritual giant, but Scripture says that some things can only be unlocked by prayer and fasting. I'm not sure what all those "some things" are, but I tend to include big decisions on that list. And hopefully another National Championship for the Gators. So I spend 10 days at the end of June eating vegan Pad Thai and apples with chunky peanut butter.

Our biggest expense right now clearly is our house. We bought it with two incomes, but our income has been cut in half. Between the mortgage and utilities, we're unquestionably house poor. But it's a house we felt like we were being obedient in buying three years ago. So something's gotta give.

So I'm fasting and praying through the question of whether or not to sell it. We love the house. It's a great house--we've got a playground and blueberry bushes in the back, "the jumps" and "commons" areas in the neighborhood where the boys love to play, the community pool literally directly across the street, and great friends that just moved in the neighborhood where we can exchange babysitting for date nights and our kids can carpool to school together.

Curious about the possibility of selling, we take the step of contacting our long time friend who happens to be in real estate. He runs some numbers, but they don't look promising. After being in the house for 3 years there's a chance we might only break even if we sell. Even so, after a week and a half of pears and prayers, I feel like we need to move forward and sell.

Then we hit a couple of speed bumps.

While on vacation at the beach (a trip provided by my mother-in-law), news breaks about our senior pastor and church founder being released from his position.

Crap.

Doesn't that put everything on hold? Will there be lay offs? Will the new direction of the church be a direction we want to go?

Layoffs at this point don't look likely, and we love our church--we have absolutely no plans of leaving. So the church factor is not a primary reason not to sell. Over the first bump.

Then comes another bump. Quite literally. Around this time we also found out that we're (or at least Bonnie is) pregnant with a surprise little nugget. A bombshell blessing. There's a, uh...certain surgery that I kept delaying--partially because of the money situation; partially because no warm-blooded male with a modicum of survival instincts really wants to schedule a weekend of sitting on a bag of frozen peas. So I got an 18 year parting gift instead.

On our 2nd doctor's visit we briefly get to see our matchbox car sized little tater, draw enough of Bonnie's blood to host a vampire's bachelor party, and then close out our stay by going over the financials at the checkout desk. There we're confronted with the reality that in a couple months' time, the rest of our savings will go toward buying our baby. Which isn't something you can put on layaway. For long, anyhow.

Even still, I can't seem to shake the call to take the step to put the house on the market.

Earlier this summer I was listening to Andy Stanley's podcast on big faith, and was gripped by his plea based on Peter walking on water to do what only you can do, and trust God to do what only He can do. Then I see a friend's social media post quoting Erwin McManus saying to "Allow yourself to step into a space where failure is assured unless God works on your behalf." Randomly, the church one Sunday gives bracelets away that read, "God's got this // God's got you." And the final straw was listening to a podcast from Crosspoint's Stories of Summer series where one of their former pastors taught on a message that was so timely for me even though the message was a couple months old. 

He spoke from Joshua chapter 1 (hard not to get pumped up going over a chapter that says "fear not" 10 times), and this message really seemed to sum up what had been bubbling under the surface of my faith.

First in reading the passage, the phrase, "Don't be afraid OR DISCOURAGED" jumped out at me. I had been both.

This pastor made statements like "I'm responsible for obedience, God is responsible for the outcome," and "If I had all the answers about my situation and what to do next, I would get all the credit." 

He talked about how God will leverage your circumstances to drive you into a deeper dependence on Him. Moses had to deal with parting the Red Sea with an army chasing them down. Joshua had to deal with crossing the Jordan at flood stage with reportedly invincible enemies in front of them. Both situations seemed impossible. Both bodies of water seemed impassable.

Until they took their first step of obedience.

So we go back to what has been our first step of obedience to take in selling the house. Not because it lines up with any sort of conventional wisdom. The numbers our friend ran already made it look like our greatest hope is to break even. We've missed prime house selling season in the summer before school starts. And aside from painting a few walls, we're not sinking any more money (that we don't have) to get it "ready to sell" - it needs new carpet, new landscaping, etc. We're going to declutter a little bit and take some things off the wall, but that's about it. If we sell and break even, we have no money for a moving truck, we have no down payment for a new place to live, no money for security deposits, what have you. 

So we stand at the edge of our Red Sea with the Egyptian army barreling towards us. We're looking ahead at the Jordan. And it's flood stage. 

But we can no longer just stand. We have to step.

I asked Bonnie to watch that sermon from Crosspoint as well. The quote that stuck out to her was, "He will overwhelm you in your circumstances beyond any solutions you can think of so His story is more powerfully told through your life."

This is that story.

Our march to the impassable waters, flooded financially, and stepping off the shore begging God to move. And at this point I have no idea how it will end, so we'll be due no credit for whatever happens next. With as much integrity as I can muster, my intent is not to try to manipulate God or try to back Him into a corner by taking this story public. God's good enough at His job without needing me to run PR for Him, and any panic on my part doesn't somehow automatically force God to reveal his power. This is just me limping into transparency of the struggle between my outer and inner me. The struggle of faith. Moving while standing still. Of relinquishing the pen back to the Author of Life, staring at the blank page of my family's next chapter begging Him to write anything but a tragedy. 

So we're stepping in faith. Because faith and fear both have something in common--they both believe in a future that hasn't happened yet. We're simply choosing to trust in advance what will only make sense in reverse. 

Chapter 1...