Today, I find myself at rest. The fog of busyness has finally settled. I completed my Master’s Degree. I think I’ve written at least 105 papers in the last three years. Through some research projects, I gained a great deal of knowledge. For others, I was grasping for eloquence and meaning, driven by the sheer desire to submit my assignment before midnight. It seems too surreal. Even tonight, as I made dinner, my heart began to race as I scanned my mental to-dos to recall if I had a discussion post response due tonight. That’s when the wave of relief washed over me. There are absolutely no assignments due tonight. I almost cried. The peace is beautiful.
One thing that I have discovered lately is that the end of my studies marks the beginning of my most important season of learning. Sometimes, when all of the voices and projects that vie for our attention are finally silent, we are truly able to hear the voice of unresolved deep work that has been calling out to us beneath the surface of our lives. The heavy whispers from our souls that beckon us to listen to the deep aches within us; To deal with the thought patterns that have chipped away at our strength season after season. Year after year.
In the past, when the dust would settle and I could feel the ache, I would give it a name. I’d read a scripture to correct my course, or say a prayer and listen for guidance. Sometimes this ache called out for me to confront a low self-concept, or pangs of misplaced identity. Sometimes it would call me to self-love, or the need to slow down enough to hear God telling me that He loved me.
Recently, it’s been as if the Spirit of God is speaking with more urgency because this wound is just too important to ignore. My deep ache in this season is to address the issue of provision. I wish I could explain how often I felt wholly bankrupt in body and soul when my bank account was empty- as if everything hinged on financial abundance. My joy, my security, and peace. Even wrongly likening financial abundance to God’s joy and pleasure over my life.
The truth is, regardless of what I have in my bank account, God’s joy and pleasure over my life is untouched. The abundance of His love and blessing is unchanged. It is immovable. The challenge is that the trauma from lack solicits a visceral response in my body, causing me to feel locked inside of myself. My body and mind remember the pain. How I wish our bodies would so easily recall the settling of abundance as much as it remembers the moments of little.
The weight of meager seasons makes the mind forget how to fly and how to dream. It is the same concept as outlined in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It’s hard to get to a place of self-actualization when all you can think about is how to put food on the table. The lie of shame here is deafening.
In this season, God has called me to address this once and for all.
Once invited into this adventure, I began by letting God know that I didn’t know where to start. I told Him that I didn’t know how to detach my worth from provision. It felt like I was having surgery on an wound that I couldn’t find. I felt the ache, but didn’t know from where I was bleeding. Have you ever felt like this? It feels like such a helpless place.
Let me be honest, in the recent past, when meager moments would come, I didn’t really have to fully rely on God. In the US, you can still drive your Tesla to Target and pay with your SNAP card. No one ever has to know times are tight- until you tell them. You can shop on Amazon with Affirm and just pay later. You can get free food at the food shelf, get enough free wares on Facebook marketplace to furnish your entire home in a weekend. I’m not saying faith is not required for any of these steps, but the thing is- I can still “make it happen.” With so much readily available, I don’t have to desperately rely on God for my daily bread.
I’ve had seasons when trusting God fully was normal, but I admit I’d forgotten. I recall a time when we sold our home and relocated to Texas to help friends start a church. Our house was under contract, Jon left the Air Force, and we literally had NO MONEY coming in. We signed up for our apartment with full faith that the house sale would go through in the two months before our arrival. We were even given a first month free deal! I was thinking: This is great! We can save the extra months’ rent and stack our savings. Turns out the house didn’t close on time. Turns out we were in a three-bedroom apartment with the five of us. Our only furniture in our luxury apartment was a chair to share that someone had given us, grandmas table, and our mattresses on the floor.
As the free month went by, it was time to pay rent, and we didn’t have it. Our church ended up paying for two months in a row. Here we are coming to help them, and we feel like more of a burden. On the day we were down to our last few dollars, I sent Jon to the store to buy chicken. I know it was an extravagant ask, as I was pretty certain we didn’t have enough- but I knew that God would provide. As Jon went to the checkout lane, it was evident that he couldn’t pay the bill. Earlier, while shopping, He had met a couple in the health and fitness industry. They were under the influence of something, but connected over a shared industry. While trying to figure out what he could do to cover the rest of the till, Jon heard the voice of the guy that he met earlier asking if Jon could buy him a cigarette. Jon was confused as he told the man that he couldn’t even settle his own bill, let alone help him out. The man said ok, then let me pay for the rest of your groceries. The man proceeded to settle the bill, and Jon came home with chicken and a mighty story of God’s provision.
That’s what I call a ‘daily bread’ season. These are seasons when we are fully reliant on listening to the Holy Spirit to lead us to our next meal. Despite our best efforts, there is nothing else that we can do but to trust. Honestly, we should always lean into the Spirit of God similarly, just without the residue of doubt and poverty. This is the season that I’ve been in, but with a very different spin. God is calling me to MORE. He is calling me to surrender the daily bread pattern and shatter a poverty mentality. He’s calling me to address my broken thinking and reminding me that He truly is ABUNDANCE.
My mantra for this season has been: As you are, so am I, Lord. You’re not broke, so neither am I. You’re not worried. Neither am I. I am reminded that God has given me the ability to produce wealth without an employer. I’ve worked so hard for everyone else, but have often shortchanged myself. During this process, I also realized that trauma greatly truncated my financial ambition, as the beginning of my last business ended with me falling asleep at the wheel of my car and my best friends moving away. In this season, God is peeling back the layers of ALL OF IT. This pain has been a festering wound under the surface of my life that I tried to cover with outward wealth and a busy life. God is teaching me that healing this wound will greatly increase my capacity.
By God’s grace, my journey of healing began with the awakening of my awareness of the wound. Then it moved to confirmation that I was meant to be a woman of wealth. (As He is, so are we.) Then it moved to self-pity amidst meager moments. Then it shifted to declaration of truth and speaking the promises of God’s unchanging blessings over my life out loud. Then to more self-pity, and then to more awakening and deep repentance. Now I am shaking off shame and working to re-learn a Kingdom Wealth mentality through some good books.
I don’t know how long this process will take, but I know I am lengthening my stakes and pegs. (Isaiah 54) I can’t take hold of financial abundance fully if I don’t take the time to learn what God thinks about it. I have to make His wisdom my own.
From gentle steps forward this week, I began to build again. I ate the fruits of my labor. The fruit was sweet. I calculated my needs and invited God into how I handled what He placed into my hands. It feels nice.
I can tell you without a doubt that the cadence and content of this learning is one of the most important lessons of my life. I was created to have wealth. I believe you were meant to as well.
I am confident that whatever position and plan God dreamed for you was never built upon a foundation of lack. If you haven’t yet, I pray that God takes you on a journey to uncover the fullness of His freedom in this area of your life. With God’s leading, and our obedience to uncover and heal what has broken, we will begin to walk in the fullness of His financial intentions for us. I haven’t yet imagined fully what that looks like, but I am walking the journey to figure it out.
Love you,
-Mel
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