Today

Matthew 6:34 - Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.


I was thankful for this reminder yesterday! We've had a crazy 5 years, financially. Building a book of business has been a slow-going process for Dave and the added market crash right when we were starting to see the light - incomewise - made it crazier. We spent almost 5 whole years covering our household expenses with our retirement funds and the equity in our home. I'm grateful that they were there to begin with - I have an amazing story of God's provision in that regard - but it gets discouraging after a while.

Last September business got better. And better. To the point of 3 whole months of his once-a-month paycheck covering ALL of our expenses that month and having a tiny amount leftover. WHAT? That happened exactly twice in the previous 50 months. To have it happen 3 months in a row was a reprieve that was desperately needed.

But then I began to expect it. This is how life is going to be from now on, right? No more worries about covering expenses, now things need to increase to the point of having a little disposable cash so we can start living normally.

December 2010... Not so good. Not as bad as a majority of the preceding 5 years, but we had to dip into the IRAs again. Deflation. Defeat. It ISN'T going to be that way from now on... And if this continues what are we going to do? We've gone through all of our equity and don't have a whole lot left in the retirement account. Where are we going to come up with supplemental money after that is gone? We have nowhere to cut from our monthly budget - we have gone as bare bones as humanly possible. Fortunately we don't have credit card debt, but that is the direction we're headed, right? Because I knew it was too good to be true. We're going to keep heading in this plateau direction of taking even small amounts out of the IRAs until they're all gone, too. Maybe we should not be doing the whole Dave Ramsey debt snowball thing. Maybe we should consider ourselves fortunate that we've found ways to pay off two debts in the last two months (Christmas money & HSA money) and absorb those monthly payments into our budget rather than apply them to student loans. Many thoughts going around.

BUT.

... don't get worked up about what may or may NOT happen in the future. God will equip us to handle whatever happens when it happens.

And truthfully, he has. He hasn't let us down. He hasn't abandoned us. He hasn't stopped providing. TODAY we have enough and that's what matters. I need to stop getting worked up about June 2010 and start paying attention to where God is working TODAY, because we have enough today... why is June 2010 occupying my thoughts? I can't do anything about it right now. I can only do something today. And the more I think about tomorrow - or June 2010 - the less I'm paying attention to what God is doing around me now.