What Did We Do Wrong?

Today I saw a Facebook post about giving.

It told the story of someone who gave generously to our church’s building fund, and was rewarded with an unexpected promotion. Before December 15, I would have been excited and encouraged. Today, I was utterly deflated.

We’ve given to the church faithfully for years. We’ve also struggled for years. My husband, in particular, really had a hard time with the idea of giving ten percent, especially when we were making hard choices with the money we had left. I kept hearing stories about people who gave and were miraculously blessed, but it didn’t seem to work that way for us.

When I tried to quit my job the first time to work as an adjunct, which in theory gave me an extra couple of days with my kids, I upped our giving against my husband’s will. Then our childcare situation fell apart and I had to pay someone instead of using family. We got hit with some unexpected bills. When summer session rolled around, I lost one of my scheduled classes because of low enrollment. By the time I started back to full-time teaching in August, we had spent every last dime of the money we’d saved, and we’d overdrawn our bank account. It took months to get back on track.

I was fully ready to join James in the “giving is crap” camp.

Our church at the time was also doing a growth campaign, and suddenly my husband was on board with giving. He’d taken a trip to man camp, where a man prayed over him and very clearly gave him the message that God was saying, “James, you can trust me.” God gave him a very clear number, and when he wrote it on the card, I sighed and figured I was never going to be able to quit my job to stay home with the kids. It more than doubled what we were currently giving. It also brought us up to exactly ten percent.

Yet right after that, I landed a freelance job that payed off my minivan – two years early. Our insurance rates dropped, and our mortgage reset as well. God opened up our budget by exactly the amount we were tithing. It was nothing short of miraculous.

Then the job opened up here, and God continued to bless us. While tithing, we paid cash for James’ car straight out of the lease. We were slated to finish paying off his student loads in February, and we would have been completely debt-free aside from our mortgage. We were already planning to increase our giving for our new church’s building campaign, and we were also going to increase the amount we put in the kids’ college fund. For the first time, we felt hope about our financial future. We'd finally hit our stride, and we were amazed at what we were able to do with what was honestly a pretty low salary.

On December 15, that vanished.

I went ahead and tithed in December. I tithed again this month. But the fact is that James hasn’t gotten a dime of unemployment and can’t even get ahold of anyone to tell him what is wrong with his account. I haven’t heard back from the social worker about whether or not the kids can get Medicaid. This month, I made $800 – pre-tax - from freelancing. I worked a ton in December, so I’ll make more in February…but this month hasn’t been very busy. So March? Not so great. I’m certainly not covering our bills, and I don’t feel like I should – or can – work more. I’m homeschooling the kids, tutoring, writing, and maintaining the house. The one thing I tell myself when I’m awake for hours every night is that I can take the kids back to Ohio, live with my mom, and start over in teaching. It makes me want to throw up. It makes me think I should have just kept the job I had, because at least we had medical insurance and a good school district for our kids. It also makes me feel better, because at least I'll be in control again. Trusting other people is for the birds.

It surely feels like we’re heading to the same place we were just two years ago, with our savings depleted, leaving my babies in the only childcare I can afford so I can go work with someone else’s kids. Only now I’ve given up that tenured job and all the years of seniority I’d earned on my paycheck. Eli asked the other day if we were poor, and it certainly feels like it.

How am I to make sense of this? Of God’s promises to provide? Why does He sometimes pour down abundant blessings, but other times He allows crippling loss and character assassination? Did we misread what He wanted us to do? Do we not qualify for the blessings and provision? What are we doing wrong?

Was something wrong with the tithe I paid during my time off work after Violet? Is that why God didn’t provide? Is God allergic to savings accounts and determined to wipe ours out every chance he gets? Is this just the life I’m consigned to because of the mistakes I made when I was young? All of those things certainly feel true.

I know God’s promises are true whether or not we feel like it, or so I’m told. It would feel nice to feel something other than that tingly, terrified feeling I get when I check the mail and find another bill. Or when I open up the cabinets under the kitchen sink to empty the bowl collecting water from the leak that started just a few weeks ago. Of course that would happen now.

I can tell you that our current living situation has made it clear to me that we could have given more for the past year and a half – and still lived quite well. I was trying to default to my husband, and if God showed up and gave him another number, I surely didn’t hear about it. I can also tell you that if God tells us to give him a certain number, I will be obedient. Because that one time we could see His faithfulness was amazing. I want to be part of helping our community find Jesus. I want to worship Jesus with my best.

I just don’t really have any best right now, and while Isaiah tells me He is doing something new, I have to confess that I cannot see it. I cannot hear God. I cannot feel Him. I can only see dead ends and discouragement and sleepless nights, and I can’t help but wonder what we did wrong.