Money

I hate money.  I know that to some this seems odd.  How can one hate money?  It is the blessing that affords us other blessings.  But boy, do I hate it.  I despise talking about it, I despise thinking about it, and I really despise spending it.  If you don't believe that last statement go shopping with me sometime...

Shopping is a stressful process for me, especially if I'm involved in the girly version of shopping where I have nothing in mind that I need.  I'm just shopping to shop.  Oh, icky!  I go into a store with nothing I "need" and I look around at clothes (or shoes, or pajamas, or *replace any item here*).  I find things I like because I am a girl at times, and I like to look fashionable.  But then I engage in the constant mind battle.  "This is really cute, but it's ridiculous to spend money on clothes I don't really need." "We don't have any money to spend anyway.  We need to save money for *replace any basic need here*"  And usually I opt not to buy anything, which I'm okay with most times, but it bothers many people around me.  I can imagine that shopping with me is not a pleasant experience; I turn it into what it really is, a practical debate over the allocation of resources, as opposed to what ever girl wants it to be, a chance to obtain a new find!  Money blows it for me...

I've spent a very long time thinking about why I am so uptight about money.  One conclusion I've come to is that when I was young we were very poor.  I was pretty much just happy with a few toys and food on the table.  Another is that, as my mom tells it: "You hated to put things away. You went to the Montessori school that required you to put things away between the lines.  You just decided it wasn't worth the fun of playing if you had to put it back in it's place. So you wouldn't play."  This reveals that I don't like having to find a place for stuff, and I still don't to this day.  The problem might be amplified because I live in a tiny apartment, but at my core I do like to de-junk more than most people.

But more challenging than the why of this problem is the more everyday living with it.  We're pretty poor; I'm a school teacher and my husband's a law student.  There isn't a huge influx of money.  So when it comes to discussing matters of where to spend that money, I stiffen up.  If I had it my way, I would spend all of my money on building relationships with others.  Going out to dinner, purchasing items to make dinner and invite others over, buying little things that remind me of others, vacationing with others: this is how I would spend my money.  But there are more pressing needs like eating, car insurance, power, and that drives me crazy.  I know it's necessary to get through life, but people are more essential to me, or so it feels like.  So when I have to start scrimping and pick and choose social outings I get a little cranky.  Okay, ask Herb and Kevyn, a lot cranky.

We know many people who've gone through financial classes and been changed and freed by the experience, and there is potential in that.  But I'm really looking for the freed portion.  I want to feel freed to invest in the things I feel called to.  I feel like God would want Herb and I investing in relationships, so why do we have less than $100 in our account to live on for the next week?  This confuses me, and I wish there were a clear answer.  Yet the difficult part about finances is that they are the definition of gray area.  I suppose in this sense it's like English class, there's no right answer.  Although the frustrating difference is that in English you can have any answer you want as long as you can justify it, which doesn't seem to be the way with money.

Needless to say, I'm not going to be able to wrap this blog up in a nice, complete package and send it off into space.  No instead, I continue to question the ambiguity of the subject.  Yet I have to remember two things.  One, it's only partially mine to own; it is God's money that He's entrusted to me.  Two, the end result I desire, relationships built, can come for free.  Perhaps I just need a heavy dose of perspective to remind me it is only for a time that I endure these frustrations, and I am blessed beyond my wildest dreams with what I already have.  I just need to be able to keep that at the forefront of my mind next time I look in my checking account.