You Can't Talk About Money, It Isn't Polite

I'm feeling humbled today.

When Gary and I were newlyweds, we were dirt poor. We lived on a stipend that he was getting from Cornell University and my babysitting job. I had not quite finished college when we got married, so I was attempting to complete my last semester by correspondence classes. One day in the spring I had just completed a paper for one of my classes and we wanted to go celebrate. So we did. We had just enough money for one hamburger and one coke at McDonald's, which we shared. We knew that the next day was payday, so we would have $0 to our name for less than 24 hours. We look back at that time as "the poorest we ever were" and laugh about it, and sometimes repeat the story to struggling newlyweds.

Well, I was remembering that story this last week, because we were totally out of money. Our income, like many missionaries, fluctuates each month according to what our donors happen to have sent in during the previous month. (Sometimes, we have "extra" money because Gary moonlights as a computer/linguistics consultant, but he hasn't had any of those jobs in many months.) Anyway, without going into any more of the gory details,** we found that the month was longer than the money and I was kind of fretting about having a negative bank balance. I reminded myself, as I often do, that God will supply our needs, as He has done for the 30+ years we've been doing this. But still I was fretting, sad to say.

Then today I got an email saying "So-and-so has sent you a gift of $xxxx.xx from the sale of stocks. Look for this on your October 2005 statement" (as if we wouldn't notice a gift of that size). So, while it is entirely possible that my bank account will be overdrawn before next Monday when this gift is deposited (depending on the timing of certain direct debit bills), it looks like we'll have the funds to cover it. :-)

Thanks be to God. I'm writing this story to give testimony to the fact that God does, in fact, meet our needs.

**I know it isn't acceptable to discuss one's personal finances in public. In our society it is more acceptable to discuss one's sex life than one's finances. But I don't view my financial situation as a reflection of my worth as a person, or my worth as a worker, so I'm less concerned about that "rule" than other people. I hope this story doesn't embarrass you.