Can I Be Content With Less?

Bucks…greenbacks…currency…cold, hard cash. In today’s increasingly digital world, these terms aren’t as as fitting as they once were. Still, whether our wallets hold paper money and coin or a plethora of plastic cards (or even digital cards in our phone wallets) it all gets back to the same thing – money!

It is difficult to live without money. The barter system fell out of favor in the United States somewhere between the 1800’s and the 1930’s depression years, depending on which article I read on Google. We require food to live. We need clothing (running around naked is frowned upon in most places, and it’d be mighty cold during our Midwest winters). Reliable shelter is important as well. For those who don’t have these things, life is very difficult indeed and my heart goes out to them. They are the ones who truly need our help.

For the rest of us I ask these questions: How much is enough? Can we be content with less?

Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them…

Matthew 6:26

How much is enough?

Don’t expect a concrete answer for those questions in this post. Everyone’s situation is different. My short answer is “what the Lord provides is enough”. I’m sharing observations here from my own life in the hope that it might encourage others. I feel my 50+ trips around the sun should earn me a little credibility.

And let’s just get this out here, too – I am NOT always content. I am still learning. There have been countless occasions where I thought I needed more. I deserved more! (This applies not just to money and what it buys, but to relationships, health, and happiness in general.) I’m just thankful that God continues to work with me – that he doesn’t lose patience and just say, “I’m done now. She’s too difficult.” But that’s not who he is.

Looking back over my life I can see in hindsight that what my heavenly Father has provided has always been enough.

God’s provision – the early years

I don’t know about you but I’m a black and white sort of person who doesn’t work well with fluffy words alone. I need proof…examples…to back them up. My background is in accounting and my life has been spent working with numbers. Numbers are solid. Two plus two is always four – if it’s not, it’s wrong. I’m also analytical. I slice and dice things to see how they work and if they make sense. Just as I analyze numbers, I also analyze situations in life. If someone says something but the evidence isn’t there to prove it…well, pffft! I don’t hear them.

So, here’s my story…the good and the not-so-good…to prove that the Lord provides enough:

I grew up on a farm in rural Iowa in the 1970’s-80’s sharing an 8’x9′ bedroom and its tiny closet with my younger sister. Our home’s one bathroom came with a trendy pink bathtub but no shower. (Whoa – that’s craziness! Sharing a tiny bedroom? No shower??) And check this out – our only telephone was connected by a cord to the wall and we were on a “party line” meaning you shared the line with neighbors. If they were using their phone, you weren’t using yours.

Mom was a homemaker. Dad farmed and later became our rural mail carrier. My parents were ordinary people but we were well provided for. There were farm-fresh meat and eggs. Mom hosted many slumber parties with our friends. We played outdoors on our jungle gym and tire swing. We made mud pies. There was a trunk filled with “dress-up” clothes in our basement that we used for imaginative fun. A high-school friend reminded me recently of how we taped bath beads to our walls and played Mom’s “Quiet Village” album our record player while pretending we were mermaids in the ocean. (For those too young to remember them – bath beads were these colored, scented oil-filled, round gelatin things that would dissolve in the bath and make the tub super slippery when you were finished.) We didn’t have a overabundance of material possessions but we had fun!

I left home shortly after turning eighteen (graduated at the semester) and moved to the city where I enrolled in a 2-year accounting program at the local community college. I married my high school sweetheart, landed a job with a solid company, gave birth to two children and bought my first house at the age of 22. It all sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?

And truly, there were many blessings!

First, children are a blessing – period! That blessing comes with fatigue and disappointment and sometimes even heartbreak, but children are ALWAYS a gift from God!

I was able to work my way up at my first company over a nineteen-year period and then transfer to a department director position with a related company where I remained for 11 more years. I was making decent money and admittedly didn’t think much about the amount I spent. If a new pair of heels caught my eye, I bought them. Boom! Whether I needed them or not.

And then life happened

Of course, stuff happens:

• I was married for 19 years to an alcoholic (the high school sweetheart). I loved him and he did provide well for us but loved his booze and a good time more than his family. This lead to infidelity issues that finally brought an end to our marriage in the early 2000’s. I remarried in 2007.
• My adult daughter, my baby who I dearly love, is a addict. She is currently homeless in another city. Her downward spiral began in her teens shortly before her father left. For anyone who struggles with a loved one’s addiction – my heart goes out to you! There are no easy answers. I’ve had her here but the chaos and danger becomes too much. She doesn’t want rehab – she’ll tell me that straight up. I’ve helped with rent. Because of the drugs, nothing lasts. Now, I just Cash App her a few bucks when she calls asking for food money. I don’t know if it actually gets used for food, but I get to hear her voice and that encourages my heart because I know she’s still alive.
• She gave birth to a son who is now a preteen. Initial attempt at helping her parent after his birth went south in a hurry when her addictions prevented her from successfully or safely parenting. My husband and I adopted him. Parenting an infant at 44 is a whole lot different than parenting at 24! Nonetheless, he is a blessing and I wouldn’t change it for the world!
• Then came the unplanned career changes. A restructure eliminated my department director position and I found myself hunting for a new job at the age of 50. Opting to take a step down to reduce the stress and long hours and spend more time with my family, I was fortunate to land a staff accountant job close to home which allowed for that – at a 40% salary cut. (To be fair, I knew I’d be taking a cut going in but I felt strongly that it was the right choice for our family.)
• Four years later I in my kitchen on a puddle of water and landed shoulder first on the hardwood, breaking my dominant arm (a fractured humerus is not humorous) and then developing complications as I healed. The pain and lack of mobility rendered the arm mostly useless for months – no typing, no mousing, no anything! I blew through my PTO and was using unpaid FMLA with no idea how much longer this unintended part-time gig would drag on. I knew of the added burden on my colleagues who were covering for me because working only part-time and one-handed wasn’t getting my job done. My husband and I prayed about what to do and he suggested I resign and concentrate on healing.
• I am currently unemployed, though by choice at the moment.

Finding contentment in less than the ideal

Do you enjoy a good roller coaster ride? I do, though they don’t treat me as kindly as they once did. What I don’t enjoy are life’s roller coaster rides. I’d much prefer everything to remain predictable and stable. As we all know (or will likely find out at some point), life doesn’t work that way. Both good and bad happen to everyone.

Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount, “… For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”

Matthew 5:45

Through both the good and the bad I can honestly say God has blessed and provided all that I have needed! Life may not be the way I dreamed it would be, but I’ve found I can be content.

Sure, I hate that my daughter struggles with addiction and all the horrible things that go with it and I pray God will someday break those chains! I look back and see how He has given me strength to deal with her crises. He has protected her as well. As long as she is still alive there is hope. So I pray.

I would never flippantly recommend divorce as an answer to anyone. God hates it for good reason. I didn’t want it and there was a point where I wasn’t sure I’d survive it….but I did…because God sustained me. He gave me strength to get through each day, each hour, each minute. Some mornings all I could do was shut myself in my closet and sing the song by Don Moen, “God Will Make a Way”. It became my prayer of sorts. Two years later the Lord allowed me to meet a trustworthy, respectful, Christian man I would later marry – a man who has shown me what true commitment means.

And, it’s probably obvious that dropping from a department director position to a staff accountant and then to…uh, nothing…is a pretty significant hit to the budget. My husband is an awesome SPED instructor in our urban district, but teachers don’t exactly pull in the big bucks. We are fortunate that his position provides our health insurance which made my ability to step out of the work force for now a little more doable. That along with a small inflow from the sale proceeds from my parents’ property after my mom passed two years ago has gotten us by.

Still, I can no longer make purchases willy-nilly. Grabbing carry-out went from necessity to near-luxury and that carry-out comes from the likes of DQ and Pancheros. I hope to get close to 200K miles from each of our current vehicles. Gone are the days where I could easily pull the trigger on a trip to Mexico or a Disney World vacation. I have become a comparison shopper extraordinaire and, boy, have I been surprised by the price variances at our local stores! Target’s curbside-pickup is also my new best friend. Staying out of there keeps me from dropping $50 on unnecessary items that jump into my cart when I become distracted by all the pretty things.

Life is good!

Though our budget is a lot tighter now (and sometimes it is frustrating), my life is so much fuller! Less really has become more!

I now have time to take care of things around the house which allows my husband to relax after work. There is more energy available to raise that tween boy because I’m not burning myself out at a job and then arriving home running on empty. By reducing my spending, I’m learning to appreciate what I already have. Groceries no longer spoil (or do so very infrequently) before I use them. I don’t miss shopping for apparel, nor do I worry about looking perfect when I go out. I’ve let my hair go naturally gray which saves me money and I actually think it looks better than battling the root grow-out. Our home décor may not be on-trend and that’s okay, too. My blood pressure, which was tending to spike easily, has been more stable – a good thing for someone who fights chronic inflammation.

And God has been generous! We’ve been able to take vacations by exchanging driving for flying (truth: I don’t really like flying anyway. It just gets you there faster), by using credit card points, by being realistic in what we spend on hotels (it’s okay to stay in a Microtel or a Super 8 – just do your due diligence by checking the ratings beforehand), and even by doing some local road trips with stays in rustic county park cabins (rustic = no bathroom).

Where do we go from here?

I don’t know, really. But my hope is to take one day at a time and to enjoy God’s provision for that day. When I need reminders and reassurance (and I will, frequently), I pray He encourages me to look back at all that He has done to sustain me and grow me and change my heart thus far. I am a work in progress.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Romans 8:28

Notice that this does not say that all things will be good (much to my disappointment) but that God takes all things (even the disappointing things and the difficult things) and works them for our good.

May the Lord keep our hearts soft and moldable, so that his work will be accomplished in us! And may we find joy and contentment in the life he blesses us with even if it means being content with less.