Recent good

Two weeks ago my amazing husband was promoted to his departing boss's job. Now he is a department manager and his salary has increased by, to me, an astounding amount! We had hoped and prayed for this and solicited lots of prayers, especially since my job, with the amount of gas needed to get there and back every week, has not helped cover our budget the way we thought it would.

The blanket of peace that descended upon our little family at having our budgetary concerns vanished, literally overnight, has disturbed me a little. I find myself thinking that we should have been this peaceful all along had we really been confident in God's love and protection. It's not like he hasn't done amazing, even miraculous, things in all three of our lives, and we have plenty of evidence that he will take care of all our needs.

My biggest worry over the last three years has been whether or not how I view our needs bears any resemblance to how God sees them. Old struggles, new situations. Now my biggest concern is to get us back on track and keep our monthly spending well below our income. The temptation to go eat sushi for lunch or to buy a really cute blouse for Kat (17 yo, HS jr) still must be resisted, pretty much as though the money still were not there.

In a way, I don't feel like this abundance is ours, even though Leo is earning it. I wonder if I can maintain this perspective on our income, that everything beyond what we need for our obligations and basic maintenance actually does not belong to us, but is for God to use. It's a difficult choice because of the ubiquitous-but-subtle anxiety about our retirement years. The urge is to sock away everything we can, for our future and for our child’s future. But wouldn't that be choosing to let go (yet again) of the very peace and confidence that God has just brought to us in this, his latest gift of generosity?

This most recent exercise in trusting God for our financial needs seems to be over. Do we use his generosity to take care of ourselves in the future, or do we trust him to take care of us again whenever the need arises? Living simply in the midst of abundance and with means is a big challenge, and it’s a new challenge. It seems more important than ever to understand how God sees our needs. I hope I can be trusted with this gift.