learning from less
I'm supposed to be taking a nap because my alarm woke me at 4:22 am, thankfully promising freshly made banana bread as my first breakfast (second breakfast was at 9:30 when I got home from work and husband was making waffles. [I married him for various reasons and I'd be lying if I said his love for eating and making waffles wasn't one of them] but this is irrelevant). With sleepy eyes but an alert body I type this, staring adoringly at our new rug...
...spent with $0 of our own money (please, please, Dave Ramsey, you may have our autographs later) and gazing anxiously at the plants that I gave Jon as "his" birthday gift (when in reality I may be more excited about our upcoming zucchini and spaghetti squash than he is). And yes, sometimes when you're support-raising missionaries and you have to choose between missing work for your brother's wedding and buying groceries, you give your husband seeds to plant (which really will lead to free food later) for his birthday gift. And you have to come to terms with that.
Again, Dave Ramsey, please save your applause until the end.
Anyway, I'm so excited because we also bought a bread pan, a shoe rack, a scarf hanger, and bed sheets with our gift cards which we so carefully saved (and actually lost for about a month, during which we were completely devastated and prayed more about finding them than our own support raising, oops) from our wedding and waited to spend until we knew exactly what we needed, thus preventing us haphazardly spending our precious gift cards on things we wouldn't need later on.
I have learned valuable life skills, like breaking down cereal boxes and milk jugs to save room in the trash (and therefore use less trash bags). That the pack of 99-cent ultra-ripe bananas can be frozen to make much cheaper (and wayyy healthier) ice cream that isn't really ice cream but at least it's cold and kind of sweet, right? Coastal.com gives you your first pair of glasses away FOR FREE (learned this from a fellow missionary who gets it SHOUTOUT LARA!). Staring into my closet full of clothes and actually regretting not buying a little bit more back when I had the money, and being okay with still looking like a college student minus the ultra-hipsterness. You can literally re-use workout shorts two or three times (really until you actually smell them while you're wearing them) so you don't have huge washes every week. A/C in your car broken? Perfect, you'll save money on gas anyway. I've learned to do the pre-support trip "outlet check" to make sure all outlets are unplugged because there's no way we are paying for that electricity. I have honed in my fifth-grade math skillz by comparing prices by weight at the store. Spending every waking moment finishing New Testament Survey the week before the deadline to get the rebate, because God knows we need that rebate. Praise reports include the fact that we haven't yet stooped to the "if it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down" level yet.
But truly, the most beautiful things are born from laboring over budgets and saving and counting. Like my favorite dates: deep conversations at home on our couch, at 10:30 in the morning, drinking coffee that he brought home free from work. That God created beautiful usefulness from waste, like making soil out of egg shells, banana peels, and coffee grounds. I've learned to be resourceful and creative at the end of the week and make delicious dinners out of the random things we have left in the fridge. I've learned to rejoice over shoe racks, and be thankful that I have shoes. Having less has made me more empathetic to those who have much less, and I've found myself praying for the poor more now than ever. Experiencing God as such a sweet Provider much more blatantly and outrageously than when I never worried about money. Laughing at the end of each month that we somehow still have enough. More than enough. And realizing that none of it is ours anyway: the rug, the zucchini plants, the non-air conditioned car. They are just tools to do our Kingdom job on this earth.
And I've found that when we have less, we trust more, rejoice more, hope more, accept help and love more, and actually give more generously.
This is not a pity-party; we have more than enough. And very soon, Lord willing, we will have salaries and savings and spending money. And I pray that I will carry in my heart the stories of our God who fed five thousand with just a few loaves, and does similar things today with the children whom He holds dear. I don't have much in my hands, so they are free for Him to hold. I will miss this season someday.
And someday, when I'm not a newlywed anymore and I see another young couple with just a futon in their living room, saving up gift cards and doing fifth grade math at the grocery store, I will smile knowingly and rejoice in the lessons they will learn.
And I may be slightly jealous of them.
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| husband there to show size |
...spent with $0 of our own money (please, please, Dave Ramsey, you may have our autographs later) and gazing anxiously at the plants that I gave Jon as "his" birthday gift (when in reality I may be more excited about our upcoming zucchini and spaghetti squash than he is). And yes, sometimes when you're support-raising missionaries and you have to choose between missing work for your brother's wedding and buying groceries, you give your husband seeds to plant (which really will lead to free food later) for his birthday gift. And you have to come to terms with that.
Again, Dave Ramsey, please save your applause until the end.
 |
| me on the left |
I have learned valuable life skills, like breaking down cereal boxes and milk jugs to save room in the trash (and therefore use less trash bags). That the pack of 99-cent ultra-ripe bananas can be frozen to make much cheaper (and wayyy healthier) ice cream that isn't really ice cream but at least it's cold and kind of sweet, right? Coastal.com gives you your first pair of glasses away FOR FREE (learned this from a fellow missionary who gets it SHOUTOUT LARA!). Staring into my closet full of clothes and actually regretting not buying a little bit more back when I had the money, and being okay with still looking like a college student minus the ultra-hipsterness. You can literally re-use workout shorts two or three times (really until you actually smell them while you're wearing them) so you don't have huge washes every week. A/C in your car broken? Perfect, you'll save money on gas anyway. I've learned to do the pre-support trip "outlet check" to make sure all outlets are unplugged because there's no way we are paying for that electricity. I have honed in my fifth-grade math skillz by comparing prices by weight at the store. Spending every waking moment finishing New Testament Survey the week before the deadline to get the rebate, because God knows we need that rebate. Praise reports include the fact that we haven't yet stooped to the "if it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down" level yet.
But truly, the most beautiful things are born from laboring over budgets and saving and counting. Like my favorite dates: deep conversations at home on our couch, at 10:30 in the morning, drinking coffee that he brought home free from work. That God created beautiful usefulness from waste, like making soil out of egg shells, banana peels, and coffee grounds. I've learned to be resourceful and creative at the end of the week and make delicious dinners out of the random things we have left in the fridge. I've learned to rejoice over shoe racks, and be thankful that I have shoes. Having less has made me more empathetic to those who have much less, and I've found myself praying for the poor more now than ever. Experiencing God as such a sweet Provider much more blatantly and outrageously than when I never worried about money. Laughing at the end of each month that we somehow still have enough. More than enough. And realizing that none of it is ours anyway: the rug, the zucchini plants, the non-air conditioned car. They are just tools to do our Kingdom job on this earth.
And I've found that when we have less, we trust more, rejoice more, hope more, accept help and love more, and actually give more generously.
 |
| abundance. |
And someday, when I'm not a newlywed anymore and I see another young couple with just a futon in their living room, saving up gift cards and doing fifth grade math at the grocery store, I will smile knowingly and rejoice in the lessons they will learn.
And I may be slightly jealous of them.
YES! Well, said, dear girl.
ReplyDeleteI can definitely relate to all of that! I, too, am excited for my spaghetti squash and cucumbers (which I was pretty proud that I bought for $0.50 each) to fruit. I love reading your blog!!
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