Series: Drawing Near (part 4)

This might be a 1002 part series. It feels like the past nine months have lasted an eternity. . . so I guess it is fitting that the blog series would be equally as drawn-out. If you missed the first three installments, they are here, here, and here.

I left off with Flower's medical diagnosis. If you want to read about that time, I posted to my old blog (which I have uploaded to this one) and the story can be found here.

A chronic medical condition means that we need good medical benefits. I ended up getting another job within my same school system, making me a full-time employee. I started this on December 1, and our state medical benefits kicked in on January 1. In the moment, working full-time felt like our only option. She needs good insurance - we need to plan for the future and a possible kidney transplant. My degree and experience makes me more easily hired, so I jumped in with both feet. Within three months I had gone from a stay-at-home mom who volunteered at my son's school, went to the gym, participated in mom's Bible studies in the middle of the weekday morning, and kept a neat house to a full-time working mom.

I think the busyness and emotions of the time helped ease the transition. Now looking back, the emotions flood me and at times I feel like I am literally drowning. There is a depression that has set in about working full-time. I have a baby that I literally see a couple of hours A DAY during the week. I have a son who used to turn around and blow me a kiss as he walked into school - now someone else drops him off most days. My 4-year-old daughter longs for me so much so that she can't sleep at night because she's waiting for me to go to bed, hoping that she can climb in and "snuggle against" my back.

This is a hard post to write. We made terrible financial decision over the past six years. Six years ago, our financial situation was STELLAR. We sold our house and made a lot of money on the sale. We used that money to pay off cards and cars. Oh my, how many times have I wished that I could go back to that summer and smack some sense into myself? That fall we purchased a home with an interest-only loan. Just typing that makes me want to throw up a bit. How could we be so stupid?

That loan and its ramifications have brought us to this place - no savings left, retirement accounts tapped, a house headed into foreclosure, and barely making it despite both of us working. I think honesty and transparency are important here because our situation is an opportunity. We are being given the opportunity not only to grow individually through this trial, but to share what we learn with others in hopes of encouraging folks in a similar place (or even keeping someone from getting here in the first place).

So many times we talk to each other in our generation with a veil over our words. I'm not saying that everyone should wear their family balance sheets on their t-shirts or anything like that, but if we truly live to glorify God with our lives - why is our financial state something to affect our personal pride? Either we are secretly thankful to NOT be facing foreclosure, to NOT have to coupon in order to feed our family, to NOT owe money on cars. . . or we are secretly ashamed to be doing those very things.

As Christians, we need to be willing to serve God in the pit. Though it feels at times like I have NOTHING to give anyone (and literally nothing) it's not about the when, the how, the what of service. . . it's about the WHY. We are to serve because we are commanded to love and serve. Being in the pit has taught me a lot about humility, grace, mercy that I never would have learned. I do not speak this message from the other side of the pit either. I am still down here, scraping my way up the sides hoping to escape.

I love this line from my favorite musicians The The Avett Brothers: "I want to have pride, like my momma had. . . and not like the kind in the Bible that turns you bad."

I am sharing this - exposing myself to all kinds of potential humiliation - because I want to document this pit for myself and my family. I want to look back at this post and know more of the WHY than I know now. Let me tell you - being in a pit like this leaves you no choice but to look up. I am looking up and praying for Him to draw nearer to me in this time and show me the way.