The one-piece life…

We’re moving. Moved. Moving.

In between?

Between places. But aren’t we always? As nAnCy said, even when we’re buying, we’re really renting.

I can’t describe to you the feelings swirling around my heart right now, but I’ll try.

Free. Released. Unburdened. Unfettered.Unconstrained. Unenslaved.

Released.

We jumped out on faith two months ago, into the wide deep, dark and unclear.

We trusted.

The Lord, He is good. He is trustworthy. He keeps his promises.

I have a certain grandma, whom I love dearest above all. She was my companion and friend through my younger years- I adored going to her yellow sunflower kitchen, eating the lunch made of her hands. I think heaven drops a little closer to that sun filled space. She has been worrying. She knows she shouldn’t, because we serve a great and wonderful God. But she’s my grandma, and she worries just a teeny bit, as a grandma is wont to do.

This bit scratched out is for her. And for me. And for anyone else who worries, just a wee bit. Who has felt the burden of unforeseen circumstances, bad choices, outright rebellion.

The Lord redeems.

He makes new.

I know I haven’t been long in this space, quick updates, promising to tell the stories that fill my days. But now, the dust settles, and I will tell of His glory.

When we were first married, we were young, young, young. Headstrong. Yes, rebellious.

We made the stupidest financial decisions any young couple could make.

We ran up the credit cards.

We spent more than we earned.

In short, we had no idea how to manage our money.

And then, to add insult to injury, we bought a house.

Of course, at the time, we had no clue just how deep in we were.

James had a job that paid enough to cover our mistakes. We were busy. We were young. There are a million different excuses I could give to try to place blame away from ourselves. I could blame it on the shape shifting economy. That wouldn’t be right. We had a responsibility to know, or find the knowledge, to listen to the wise ones, and we tried to feign ignorance, even though we could feel the crunching bands of debt screw hard around our lives. We knew it didn’t make sense. We knew it wasn’t what God advised his people. That should have stopped us cold and it didn’t.

Five little pairs of feet have crossed our threshold since then.

Five very precious pairs of feet. Feet that need guidance, direction, love. And yes, food and clothing and a roof over their heads.

The debt mounted.

The house grew smaller and smaller.

James’ hours at work dwindled as the economy tanked. Soon, the job disappeared all together in a round of layoffs.

That debt, which was a sort of manageable but much disliked fifth cousin of the family that we tolerated and put up with and tried to ignore, morphed into a monstrous crushing hand that kept us up into the wee hours of the night.

Even then, the Lord sustained.

Through the last year and a half, people from all walks of life supported us. A college community group, tight as their budgets were, paid our mortgage for three months running, keeping a roof over our heads. James’ parents. My parents. They didn’t have to help us. There were a million reasons why they could have said, “not right now.” But they didn’t and we walked the darkest year and a half in the company of some amazing people.

But after a year and a half of joblessness, of financial ruin, of seeking God’s face, of asking His will, and looking for a clear sign, we had none.

(We tend to like to ignore the obvious.)

During one of the coldest and most ruinous storms of this winter season, a few days before Christmas, we took a deep heaving gulp of faith-air and jumped.

We sold our way-too-expensive-massively-too-small-brand-newish minivan and bought a used fifteen passenger van Christmas Eve, greatly reducing our car debt. We still have a little way to go, but it is in the getting-paid-off-in-a-year-and-a-half realm instead of six, seven years down the road when that brand new van would be so much junk. I don’t think we’ll ever buy a brand new car again. As a matter of a fact, I intend to drive the wheels off of this van, all the way through teenage-hood for my children and beyond.

Four days after Christmas, we put our house on the market. In the worst economy since the Great Depression. We felt a little bit crazy. We weren’t in foreclosure or anything, but we could barely make the payments on the house included with all our credit card debt, and suddenly, we felt this heavy pressure that we needed to move now, and we did. (I was terrified. Scared. But there were as a part of us too, that felt that things were going to be okay.) Incidentally, my husband and I had been thinking about doing this separately for almost four months. It was a late Advent season date in which one of us finally had the guts to mention it, and then were presently surprised to see that the other spouse had been thinking long and hard about it too! Don’t ever make a financial move as a couple unless both of you are a one hundred percent in agreement. (Boy, have we learned that lesson.)

There was no job in sight.

You know the rest of the story.

God is good, and His love endures forever.

I have walked through the sorrow of losing a child. Of losing my health for an extended period of time. I have walked through the consequences of bad decisions. Oh, my friends, the way seemed so very dark. There seemed no light, no hope.

I am standing in the blazing warmth of the Son’s light this morning.

Free to walk in the one-piece life. To pursue Him. To give freely, because hasn’t He given so much the more? No longer will Satan hold us tied in the inactivity and inability of debt.

Whole cloth, one-piece, room to breathe.

For with our house selling, we have moved into a place of freedom from debt, and it is good.

The Lord is good, and His love endures forever.