One of the volunteer roles I took when first married was as a counselor for Navy Relief.
The Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society provides financial counseling and assistance to Navy-Marine Corps families members in crisis by supplying them quick loans for urgent needs(as qualified), help with emergency needs like baby formula and diapers or help with emergency travel.
It was a God-ordained opportunity as I saw that I lived a life with more margin and opportunity than I ever realized. Mostly women strapped for income would come to the office in crisis because a husband had not made arrangements in advance of their deployment for funds to be automatically deposited. Another repeated scene would be members needing a short term loan because something like cable was deemed more pressing than groceries and now they needed to feed their children. I saw this with empathy because so many just didn’t know how to think about money.
Part of my role was to work with them to write out their budget and then either supply them with a short term solution(always if children were involved) or not. Often I had the uncomfortable job of showing them their created reality and challenge them to break the cycle of spending more than they earned. All pre-Dave Ramsey! Many were grateful. Many were not. I came home grateful though.
I once heard if money can solve the problem then it really isn’t a problem. That’s easy for you to say, you might think. Gary and I never felt deprived or at the mercy of money. I wish I could outline how that happened expect for the daily small choices of not spending what we didn’t have. We have eliminated, delayed or deferred spending. This simple discipline which Gary leads in modeling has enabled us to be generous in so many ways.
It can be easy to be jealous of others. I remember friends who would take amazing trips and travel. I wondered how that was possible only to discover years later of the misery and shame of the now disclosed debt they were under.
Gary and I lean on this wisdom from Proverbs 30.
7 “I ask two things from you, Lord. Don’t refuse me before I die.
8 Keep me from lying and being dishonest. And don’t make me either rich or poor; just give me enough food for each day.
9 If I have too much, I might reject you and say, ‘I don’t know the Lord.’ If I am poor, I might steal and disgrace the name of my God.
PS. Speaking of mistakes. I missed a day! No self-flagellation here(well maybe momentary, I am learning to let it go). Just recognizing that sometimes the margin of rest and recovery helps us move faster than pressing through. Money or time – margins works with both.