financial peace!

so, i've been in Financial Peace University for four weeks now & i've learned a ton.

a few choice lessons:

1) there are no emergencies. really? your car broke down? that's such a shame. i thought cars were supposed to last forever. you never could have expected your car to break down. there's no way you could have planned and saved some money for potential car repairs, right? and had that money working for you while it was in the bank? just think of it. same thing with things like renter's insurance and DMV fees (once a year dingers that always seem to sneak up). but really, do they? maybe we could grow up and start planning for these expenses, and stop whining.

2) it may take time to get out of debt, but the companies i owe money to do not actually own me. my obligation is to take care of myself - make sure i have somewhere to live, food to eat, a car to drive to work, and clothes on my back (and they don't have to be fancy). after that, some giving, saving, bills, and then debt. and with the committed intensity of a banshee, i will be debt free by the time i'm 30! and with the same habits, a millionaire when i'm 45? maybe! j. money at www.budgetsaresexy.com inspired me.

and my favorite quotes from the class:

when broke people say "i can afford it," they mean "i think i can afford the payments. when rich people say "i can afford it," they mean "i have the money to pay for it." - dave ramsey

"there's a great place to go when you're broke. to work." - dave ramsey's grandma

i was stoked this last week, because i had to go home and wrench away on a ton of worksheets that calculate multiple savings accounts, net worth, etc. there are some at dave ramsey's website, but i'm not into having to pay $30 a year to access forms that aren't transferrable to my iPhone. plus, i'm kind of a nerd about spreadsheets. (my favorite friend melissa would be proud).

the fifty-something women (not as spreadsheet savvy as i) in my FPU class were very jealous of my colorful finance sheets, especially the one that deliniated what i'm saving for. it has a picture of a vespa on it.

hey, if they can help you, by all means! enjoy. and the best money advice i can give you: quit spending money on stupid crap.

see & download my zero-based budget here:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AiGTzEkvMbG4dGE3VWZ5Z3JoWFdJVnMtRTFwZ2tid0E&hl=en

see & download all my other blank FPU worksheets here:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AiGTzEkvMbG4dDdvYWVVNEx0MFZBYURWSWUwelNSN2c&hl=en

humility. dignity. money. & not grinding my teeth

(some of my favorite things i've ever written have come out on napkins, or, like this one, on the "notes" of my iphone. i typed this in the waiting room of my dentist's office just before i left for my roadtrip 5 months ago, and just found it. i was struggling with what humility and dignity looked like at that point, and this is what God taught me that day. it totally shows, very viscerally, very vulnerably, where i was at, but i think it's worth sharing.)

money: I am so glad God is bigger than my bank account. Well, of course he’s bigger than my bank account, because my bank account is minuscule (often negative), and so even a crayon is bigger than that. But He’s bigger than my bank account is small. He’s big enough to make it stretch. I’m so grateful for that. I have definitely decided that I always want to be a little bit desperate for him. That’s a scary prayer, but I never want to be complacent. I know that for a fact. I think I might be praying to always be a democrat, but anyway, I never want to have enough money. I always want to have to ask Jesus for help. That’s horrifying. But it’s true. I don’t know that I can trust myself to not rest on my laurels. I got really judgmental last week of some televangelists who have an airport named after them (they actually named their ministry after themselves), and I’m just going, whaaa? How can you be reliant upon God if you have that much money? And – this is one awesome thing that Mark’s taught me – everything comes at a price. Even my NTI today. I was a little afraid I might have to go on a date with the Dentist after he gave me a free $500 dental appliance. I don’t want there to be a price. I want God to give. I want him to provide. I want to be desperate for him, I want to need him, because I know he’ll provide. Damn. There’s dignity. There’s humility. I know I’m nothing without Him but I know he won’t leave me empty handed.

life changes, everything changes.

so here it is. i knew Jesus was up to something.

i've seriously been praying for a breakthrough in two areas:
1) finances
2) adulthood

and i wasn't sure how He was going to make it happen. honestly, i get in the way. (i'm not the only one, i know you feel me on getting-in-the-way-of-your-own-growth.) i want to bust out of the bondage of my debt, and i want to grow beyond the simplicity of adolescence, but i seem to keep getting tripped up by the same patterns.

and there are things we hold onto. ahem, (i'm clearing my throat), people. relationships. y'all know what i mean.

jenni's moving to illinois. she got this amazing promotion - outside sales - and she's going to be able to be much closer to her family in iowa, it's a huge salary increase, she gets a company car, and her goal was always to move to outside sales, and she's made it there, at 26. that's phenomenal and i could not be more proud of her.

but she's leaving me.

she's my person.

and this is just earth-shattering. i can't even begin to get my head around the reality of it. who'm i going to debrief with? every saturday night? no more drunkenly belting 80's ballads while driving north on the 5? (okay, she was never drunk, and i rarely was, but the concept was called 'drunken harmonies' because of its origin.) seriously, who will defend the cattle farmers of america? who's going to laugh endearingly when, on beach cruiser rides to the ocean, i yell "that's inappropriate!" to the men who catcall?

at the same time, i've been thinking lately that i'm evolving. i'm not the same as i was when i moved to north county 4 years ago. jenni and i met in a bible study about 6 months after i arrived, when she first came out from iowa. and there are some times with friends, even with friends who love you and want the best for you, when you're stuck in the frame of who they think you are. (i feel like this was addressed really well - and super comically - on an episode of "how i met your mother" with lily and her high schol best friend.) i think there are some grown-up parts of me that are ready to emerge that i may have been reluctant to let flourish, out of fear for how they'd affect our friendship. so, with this new change, this new distance, will come new challenges and new growth space for me.

also, the opportunity to move somewhere less expensive is a super fine bonus. i love our place so much, but it won't be the same without her, and it's not worth the expense! i'd rather save some money & stress.

altogether, huge shock. this is going to be a crazy month of processing, grieving, packing, moving, and branching out, for both of us. but i think good things are coming.

throwing paint

i made a list today of all the reasons my life is falling apart.

if you are in the midst of a horrible pity party/crying fit/hormonal migraine fest, it might sound like the least healthy thing in the world (which is what the rational part of my brain kept telling me as i wrote), but it was very cathartic.

the optimist in me (fighter, she is) wanted to write antidotes to every statement. but i wouldn't let myself. i insisted that the list could only be bad. this is a list of bad, awful things.

what i wanted to do was paint. i wanted a canvas and i wanted to throw paintballs at Jesus. i'm frustrated, i'm confused, and when i start to feel this way, the darkness of my past creeps up to whisper that i might have been forgotten about. the ever expanding list that i have is overwhelming. i feel like the number of problems i have is ridiculous, and every one of them seems like something nobody's ever been through, and if i were to share my problems with anyone, i'd just be talking about myself, forever. and i just love Jesus because i know He wants me to throw sponges full of paint at a canvas and pretend it's Him, every one an item from my list, a prayer, a plea.

(i'm thinking, when i say that, of the white witch again - who threw that busted up wrought iron lamppost at Aslan's face, trying to kill him. you remember that what happened next is that it bounced off Aslan's forehead, fell into the Narnian snow, and grew into a far more beautiful lamppost than it had been before. that's a perfect picture of God's redemptive power.)

i realize that this list belongs to God, and that He cares about every single thing on it, and that He has a plan of how to work it all out - from how i'm going to make sure i'm getting enough nutrients from a plant-based diet (a serious concern, considering my migraine medication causes me to forget to eat for much of the day) to how i'm supposed to balance my work schedules, since i'm trying to earn serious credibility at one workplace while hanging by my teeth, running from job to job in order to keep gas in the car and groceries in the fridge.

so, thinking of my list - each item a sponge full of paint - like a lamppost- i want to throw it in Jesus' face and see what His redemption can turn it into. take my migraines, Lord. what can you grow that into? my financial brokenness?

i know He's up to something, and i'm really trusting in Him in the midst of this. for me, trusting involves throwing paint.

He can handle my language.

one frustrating day, at least a year ago, i was very pissed off, and was walking around with my head down, and lost my keys, had been late for work, overdrawn my bank account, gotten into an argument with someone, and just generally kept doing really stupid things. i continued saying the f-word throughout the day, under my breath, in the direction of the ground. at some point, i realized i was saying it enough that if you were to listen closely it nearly sounded like a duck, quacking.

obviously, i needed to change my attitude, but i really thought, i brought on these situations myself. or did i? i don't know. i don't care. i'm just so mad, so frustrated, so hurt, and i don't have anyone to help me. (this is a cycle that i have an unfortunate habit of getting myself into. i'm getting better.)

at that point, it was like i heard the Lord whisper to me, "tell me about it." and i know that's the Holy Spirit's role- to make us aware of God's presence, so i honestly believe that He was there, coaxing me to usher my profanities heavenward. i knew all i had in me was the same swear word i'd been uttering towards the ground, so i was really nervous to open my mouth. "i can handle it," He seemed to say. "i've heard it before." so, different posture, i lifted my chin, opened my hands, and said to the sky, now as a prayer, a long, drawn out, "fuuuuuuuckk." and i sensed God's comfort, assuring me, "i know. i've been there, too. it's okay."

i made this painting at the end of that day. it was really a turning point for me, spiritually, and shoved me into the holistic, visceral view of my faith that i hope will characterize the rest of my life.

aiming for the forehead

so many things, three things, three things, maybe four, filling my mind, so full. so full.

i just finished reading the poisonwood bible. and my head is filled with africa, with its tragedies, with its secrets and mysteries, with its injustices. with the hypocricy of (fictional) baptist missionaries and thier forced religon, with their insistence on changing africa to match up with Jesus. i think Jesus would be more comfortable in the congo than in any baptist church. the african mamas didn't understand why Tata Jesus, as they called him, Father Jesus, would take away babies from dysentery, even the baptist babies. why, Tata Jesus, why? they'd cry. it's a heavy story, latent with distrust for organized religon, and laced with little hope. so why'd i stay up until 4 in the morning reading?

i'm pretty sure i've never been as poor as i am right now. i am literally cashing in on my future to make it through my present. the financial demands from outside of me cannot be met with anything i posesss monetarily. i have never looked around my home for things to sell before.

i am marketing a book called wholly Jesus. it's superb. it's phenomenal and life changing. and last night, its author, my pastor, my mentor, told a story from the chronicles of narnia. he said, once, the white witch pulled a lamppost out of the ground. the lamppost the kids had first seen upon exiting the wardrobe and entering narnia. she pulled it up, and broke it in half, and held it out as a weapon, hell-bent on destroying aslan. he charged at her, and she struck him with the broken, iron lamppost, square between the eyes. this was not one of aslan's gentle moments, and the metal rod bounced plumb off of him and fell to the ground. mark continued the story, and i'm now realizing, he didn't mention what happened next to aslan, or to the white witch. but the lamppost shard that fell to the ground, it hit the ground and then began to rise up and be reshaped, until it stood perfectly vertical, as a lamppost, again, in the ground, shining brightly. what the white witch intended to harm aslan with was given a new identity when it came in contact with him. it got its purpose back. it became, again, what it was supposed to have been in the first place.

and i got into a car accident today. i was so distracted, so full of thoughts. adah, a character in this book i just finished, think backwards sometimes. thoughts of full so distracted so was i. it almost makes more sense that way. i was looking behind me, literally, it was a yeild and i was trying to yeild (damn it) and i just assumed that the truck in front of me had kept moving as i expected and then jenni grabbed my leg and said, "NO!" and i hit him. and i broke into tears instantly and the poor man i hit was now comforting me and i cannot tell you what i hated more. my tears, my weakness, my stupidity, my foggy mind. i whispered to myself, "stine, you are loved, even in this failure." another mentor, jonalyn, keeps feeding me these lines to feed myself, in hopes that i start to believe them. failure this in even loved are you.

so i wad up now. i wad up myself - so full of thoughts, so crammed with emotion that i want to curl up and cry forever. cry a new river for a congolese village - my salty tears would at least be free of the bacteria that kills babies, no? cry until all my insufficient funds fees have been reconciled and the bank decides it's had enough fun pillaging the little i have. i try not to think of myself with a welding iron in my hand, attempting to fix the sweet man's bumper myself, because i'm sorry, sir, i can't pay for it. can i throw a bumper at aslan's forehead?

what will become of the one who never made it out of her twenties? we remember her, boisterous-one-with-purple hair. where is redemption for her? are you sending a stimulus package, Tata Obama? will it come soon enough? and what about Tata Jesus, who is the continual brunt of my assaults? the forever white witch, throwing at him my insecurities, my drama, only not as brave as she. i'm not as brave because i run after throwing them. i've never stayed to watch my weapons, which are as insufficient as my funds, be reshaped into what they were purposed to be.