September 14, 2018
Our Daily Bread
Have you ever thought about the line in the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread?”
I always believed it meant to trust God for provision.
I never really lived the “daily” part.
Our life is broken into seasons and in this season, there is no weekly or monthly guaranteed income. We work daily. We get paid daily. Of course, we understand that bills are monthly, so we have to save the money we make in order to pay for monthly provisions. For the last few months, when we pray that prayer, I understand the “daily bread” part literally.
Our service work is different than a “regular job” in that we don’t have sick days or PTO to pull from when we’re sick. When I got sick with the mold garbage was a huge cut on our family’s finances. Our income has even changed from what we had a few years ago: From startup to two years ago our business had several streams of “weekly” or “monthly” income from operating, but times change. We could take a day off then and it didn’t come with worrying if rent or electric would get behind over it.
God always provides, though. God makes sure we get enough calls to keep our provisions met (we have been on time for rent & electric in this season). We get blessed in unexpected ways too. Unexpected ways are like this past Sunday when a sister from church gave us two boxes of fruit popsicles – the kids LOVE those things!
Radio preachers always say stuff like, “just give what your family would spend eating out.” It makes me feel so sad. (We do pay $200 a month to help another – plus anything God tells us to give. But that is between God and us.) We don’t eat out. We used to. If I mention a restaurant we’ve tried “the other day,” it was likely over two years ago. I don’t tell other people our financial situation. I don’t like to “bother others” because God does always provide and as long as we have rent, I’m not going to ask anyone for help. Outside of Louis buying a $20 box from the new Bojangles to try it out for a birthday lunch, we haven’t eaten out in ages. We understand that good stewardship in our family right now means spending less than $8 for each dinner meal for all of us – and one item each from the dollar menu still breaks that budget. Honestly, beans and rice (the most common) or spaghetti/zoodles with marinara (2nd most common) cost $2.80 and $3.30 each, respectively. Most of our family dinners cost us less than $8 a meal. Breakfast (thank you, God, for eggs!) is under $2 and lunch is usually about $4 since we save full meat and good veggies for dinners. Since we make feed money off our chickens and eggs, eggs are practically “free.” We go to a local produce market a mile from us and pick lots of veggies from the $0.50/lb “scratch and dent” box. I like to think I’m pretty good at stretching money.
For us, this season has taught us to depend on God daily. That was very hard for me at first. I am a planner. I am a saver. I am very good at saying “no, that’s not on the list,” and not allowing money to be spent on something I consider unnecessary. But I find it an extreme challenge to not have the full month’s bills sitting in the bank – we used to have six months of bills in the savings account and one in the checking! I hate the uncertainty of depending on God to give us calls every day. I look at our reservations and my stomach churns. There’s usually nothing for me to plan on. Fifty-three stories online and I made zero in August, so I can’t plan on that just yet. I’m so unsure that I’m applying for every job that I can possibly pretend my skill sets fit only to be rejected by everything in the last two years. (Obviously, God doesn’t want me there.) If I get a job, it will be because God wants me there. (Maybe God wants me in this season of uncertainty because He’s teaching me to depend on Him more and worry less?)
Do I love working from home? YES! (I drive when there are calls, wait at home in-between.) Do I love being able to homeschool, write more stories, tend my garden and tiny farm, and be present as my children grow? YES! YES! YES! YES!
What is hard for me is accepting uncertainty.
Frankly, though, life is totally uncertain! A “steady job” is just as uncertain as the “daily bread” season we are in! It only appears more secure.
Only God is truly certain. Why would I want to trust in anything else?
Thanks for reading!
Type at you later…
~Nancy Tart