A Cautionary Tale

What follows is the story of a very foolish woman.  Maybe you'll identify, and maybe you're a lot more mature than this. You be the judge.

Yesterday was a very good day for our family. Both of our kids received great  news about their health, and some of their short term goals look like they're falling into place. Work has leveled out a bit for the Husband, (the earlier part of the week had been very tough.) Last, but not least, two really grueling business matters that we've been dealing with, seem to be finally drawing to a close. We've been hammering away at this stuff since New Years and there were times I really thought they were going to drive us right off the deep end. Now, although they are both unrelated, they seem to be resolving themselves in the same week. (Gotta love God's sense of humor.)  The Husband and I went out last night and sketched out some cool plans we've had to (finally!) start combining our work duties with ministry. We were both excited to see what God's doing.

In a phrase:   Life was good.

When I got up this morning, I found this funny thing on the Husband's desk. It was one of those promotional letters you get, saying: "Congratulations! You've been selected for two round trip airfares, a 3-day hotel stay and a bar of gold!" (Okay, so I made the last one up.)  "Just call this number within 48 hours and see if you qualify!" Computerized form, no return address, no details.

We'd talked about this letter last night.  The Husband thought it was one of those timeshare condo things.  I said I thought they would give you the stuff,  if you took out a loan with their company. (We seem to be drowning in loan offers lately.)

This morning, my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to call the number and see what it was really about. The perky little woman on the phone told me that it was an offer to promote a new travel company that was doing market research in our area, and that all I had to do was answer five little questions to qualify.

"Sweet," think I, "bring it on."

The first four questions were pretty innocuous.  Zip code, pulse rate, stuff like that.  Then, she said: "and now, just this last question:  Combined, what income do you and your husband make each year?"

I told her.

She repeated the figure.

"Uh-huh," I said.

"Combined?" she said.

"Uh-huh," I said.

"Well,"  (followed by loud rustling of paper.) "according to our program, unfortunately you do not qualify at this time. You might get a follow up letter, but this will probably be the last time we'll be contacting you."

And, just like that.  Kicked to the curb.

When I hung up, I was a little disappointed, but no big deal.  But, as I starting doing a few kitchen chores, it began to gnaw at me.

One of the questions she had asked was our age range. It was obvious she was looking for the "ever-so-slightly-past middle-aged-couple-with-a-healthy-income-looking-for-a-vacation-property"segment of the population.  We're the age, but we 'aint the income. (Okay, so maybe we're not even the age anymore.)

So, I started thinking:  Shouldn't our income be higher that it is? Don't our peers with children our age have higher incomes than ours? Shouldn't we be thinking about our future? When you stop to think about it,  it was pretty embarrassing to give her that figure. It's no wonder she was so shocked. So what is the "right" income for someone in our place in life? And more importantly, how should we get there? Maybe I should talk to our financial person again. Maybe...

And, just like that.  In a moment.  My peace was gone.

That was all it took to take my focus off all I've been blessed with in the past few months. All it took to divert me from staring at God in amazement because of the way he has come through for our family,  time after time.

One lousy little phone call.

But, God was good.  Good enough to follow it with three little words whispered into the ear of this very foolish woman:
 
                                                            Look At Me.

Like I said, maybe you catch on a lot quicker than I do.  I hope so.
Let me know your thoughts--I'd love to hear from you :)