talkin' money

I know we (as in, we as a people, generally) don't talk about money very often. But we did, kinda, with new friends this weekend, and we got a great idea from them!

They keep 1 main bank account and everything for the month gets paid out from it. But then they have 2 separate checking accounts, 1 for each of them, that is used for spending money. It doesn't get tracked in the major budget, and you can spend it however you'd like. The money for the spending accounts comes from the leftover at the end of the month, which is split in half.

I love this idea of a spending account that I can use to get myself a pedicure, a new album on iTunes, or to save up my birthday money without it disappearing into the oblivion of the monthly budget. I know Larry likes the idea of being able to save up for the new iPhone 5 without hand calculating how much of the current checking account is "his." I married a saver, while mine tends to go $10 at a time. But the idea of splitting the difference at the end of the month doesn't work for 2 students whose pay checks aren't identical month-to-month, and neither are our student expenses (like the $1500 semesterly health insurance check we're about to write!). So we've modified the idea and come up with this:

- 2 separate spending accounts, 1 for each of us

- $15 a month going into each account plus any birthday/holiday money. Plus Christmas spending money for the other spouse so that we don't see what the other one bought.

So I thought I'd just open it up and see if anybody else has some ingenius money ideas out there that they're hoarding just because people don't talk about money! Do you keep separate spending accounts? How has it worked out for you? Any bugs in this system you want to warn me about?

give it away now

I’ve just finished cram-studying church history from about 1600AD to present. Exam’s done. This is the first thing I read afterward, and it’s quite a bit of the theology and history in my exam in one article from my financial website:
"Are You Ready to Start Giving Money to Charity" from Mint.com

You can get the gist for yourself, but basically they’re saying that donating money lacks financial wisdom. So don’t do it. Be like the airlines. Put your own mask on first.

But then they throw in this last line with the most tremendous sense of irony and dispacement with the rest of the article:

In fact, he’s done economic numbers crunching to establish “that when people give more money away, they tend to prosper.”

Well, Fancy that.

What are your thoughts? What value do you find in “giving away” money? Where have you seen this trend before?

wordless wednesday: tornado

eternity through a mouse and an owl

Due to a night owl and a mouse, I crave the new earth. Allow me to explain.

I don’t do well with rodents. I once had a cat named Natasha that was supposed to stand guard over my house while I was sleeping, protecting me from the mice I knew were there. She was terribly ineffective. Arrow Exterminators was effective, but I still felt bad for their poison methods. They’re brutal. (Never Google what poison does to animals.) Yesterday I found out that we have a mouse in the cabin, and neither Natasha nor Arrow are at my disposal. So we had to go with the traps.

Bless Larry’s heart, he had to set them. They kept snapping at him with this horrible noise. He placed them around the kitchen sink, which is all of 2 arm lengths from where we sleep. I was already dreading hearing that sound in the middle of the night. And heard it, I did.

Snap! “Larry! Please wake up! It’s the mouse. It got him.” Followed by squeak, squeak, lots of grunting, shuffle, shuffle. Why is it making that much noise?! “Seriously, Larry. Please get up, I can’t stand it!”

Sparing you any more details than necessary, it only got his tail, so Larry threw him out the front door. And I didn’t sleep for another hour as I actually prayed for the Lord to bring in the new heavens and the new earth where I wouldn’t have to kill and expel his created mice (disease carrying, food eating, defecating everywhere mice) from my dwelling.

As for the night owl, don’t worry. I’m not going to tell a story about setting a trap for an owl. (Though I did see one while I was sitting on the cabin’s porch! He was flying low about 3 feet from me. They are beautiful!!) Our church where we are serving this summer has a program called Night OWLS where we hang out for the evening with children with special needs and with their siblings. It’s a gift of a program, and I really feel as though I was the one who walked away blessed and served.

Larry walked away that night with a keen insight. As he lifted a child out of a wheelchair so that he could sit in a fire engine, as he placed the child’s hands upon the fire truck so he could feel its rough texture, and as he turned his head to see the shiny bins (shiny bins!) on the side of the truck, Larry perceived that this is his own posture in the hands of his loving God. That we are broken individuals in need of a loving Father to carry us in our sin and brokenness, to lift us up into places where we can see what’s coming ahead, to lead us to the people we need to reach out and touch, and to turn our heads to what we need to notice. Larry also showed me what I could not see: that these children are a reminder to us of the promise of restoration. God has promised that he will set the world aright. That he will heal the broken.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face. Rev 22:1-4

So I’m holding out hope today for the night owls and the mice. I’m also claiming this eternal promise for other circumstances that have arisen just this week—funerals, Alzheimer’s, injustice against orphans in Bolivia, addiction, lost college students, tornado victims, and cancer patients. And I hold out hope for myself as well—that the wounded places will be mended and that family and friends that have left this earth will be brought back into communal presence. That tree’s going to bear fruit each month. Heaven will be eternally abundant and whole.

Spirituality of a Taproot

The image of the taproot.
My friends visited a vineyard recently and shared with me this image:
A stressed vine is a healthy vine.

Let me repeat.
A stressed vine is a healthy vine.

This is not one of those immediately applicable images for which the heavens part and we immediately grasp that-- yes! a stressed Megan or a stressed Mom or a stressed student or a stressed teenager or a stressed person is a healthy Megan, Mom, student, teenager, or person. But it is a miracle of nature that a stressed vine is a healthy vine.

So why would you observe this in nature? That in the case of a vineyard, a stressed vine is a healthy vine? Prepare for some science.

The vine has a taproot from which it receives its water. The taproot will naturally grow as deep as the water it needs reside. So in a season of sufficient rain, the taproot will grow near the surface, receiving water from the taproot in the immediate soil.

Seasons of stress drive the taproot deep into the soil. Seasons of stress for the vine are primarily seasons in which water is withheld. I’m a bit dense. It’s 5am, so let’s try that again.

A stressed season is a season in which water is withheld.

Who’s withholding water from a vine? You want wine after all, which definitely requires water. The vinedresser knows that a stressed vine is a healthy vine, and so she will withhold water from her vine in order that the taproot will grow more deeply, seeking water. The taproot will grow more deeply when the topsoil, the soil near the surface of the plant, is providing insufficient water.

So the vinedresser withholds water from the vine for a season, ensuring that her vine’s taproot will grow deeply and have a source of deeper water so that when a dry season comes, she is not tapped out (sorry, couldn’t resist).

A stressed vine is a healthy vine because her taproot has rooted herself into the deep, rich source of water available far below the surface. Because her careful vine dresser has withheld surface water for a season, deeper nutrients are available to her in seasons of unexpected stress.

How’s this picture working for you?

It’s working for me right now. I even think my careful vinedresser has prepared me for a season of withholding by showing me the sustenance available below the surface level of my faith. I have been sitting every morning this week in the words of Psalm 46. Here the Psalmist introduces us to the tumultuous nature of the world in which mountains are literally being hurled into the sea. He concludes with, “Be still.” For the God who throws mountains into the sea, the Lord of the angel hosts, is with you. He is your fortress-- an immovable place-- when mountains are being hurled into the sea. I cannot imagine any place being safe when mountains are being hurled into nonexistence. And yet, God promises us that even when he is in the business of absolute destruction of all that surrounds, he is in the business of protecting us.

When you feel you are in a season of being withheld from-- loneliness, uncertain health diagnosis, unanswered questions, temporary living situations, without work, empty bank account, a string of “no’s” or “not yets,” persecution; when your surface level soil isn’t providing the nutrients you’re used to-- when your friends, spouse, calendar, devotional time, sense of calling, go-to verse, vacation, exercise plan aren’t delivering what you need; will you allow me to remind you of the nutrients available just a bit deeper? Will you allow the vinedresser to send your taproot deeper?

A stressed vine is a healthy vine.
Times of stress can be opportunities to send your taproot down deeper.

More fulfilling nutrients with a better promise of satisfaction are available in the Word of God, below the surface areas from which you are used to receiving the love, acceptance, and assurance you need. There is an invitation to draw near to the throne of grace with confidence to find mercy and receive grace to help in your time of need. (Hebrews 4:16)

Let us allow God to send us deeper into his Word when we feel lonely and unsatisfied, that we may find the truth that will enable us to bear the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and faithfulness in the season to come. May we not squander our vinedresser’s season of withholding so that we will have access to the nutrients we need in the season of harvest to come.

Better nutrients are available below the surface.
God’s Word supplies more richly than the platitudes often repeated.
Tapped out? Go deeper.