We went to St. Thomas a few weeks ago. After our year of layoffs, financial disaster, and crisis, anxiety, the trip was like a long, cool drink of water after being in the desert for 9 months.
I felt guilty going. I added up all of the money we’d be out because we weren’t working during that week. Plus, even though we were staying with friends, who were also paying for half of our airfare, I still wondered whether or not we should be spending any money on leisure, since we still have some debt to pay off.
At the same time, we were exhausted. Burned out from scrambling to come up with money, with looking for work, for not blaming each other and trying to keep our marriage from derailing, like many marriages do in the midst of financial crisis. I was tired of trying to keep it all together. Of worrying about money. About beating myself up that we were even in this situation.
For six months, I've had a great gig at an agency. David has been working three part-time jobs. We're paying down chunks of debt. We have a little breathing room, even though we still don't feel totally secure. But I'm coming to the conclusion that maybe we’ll never feel totally secure, and that's okay.
So, in a moment of weakness, when David announced that he had found cheap flights to Puerto Rico, and that we could fly free from Puerto Rico to St. Thomas and then stay with friends while there, I told him to book the flights.
As the date for our vacation drew nearer, and I started adding up in my head how much more money I could make if I worked that week, I started feeling more and more ambivalent about our vacation.
Should we take time off work? What would other people think, knowing we were recently unemployed and now we're jetting off to St. Thomas?
I talked to my dad the night before we left, and told him how I was feeling.
“Oh, you’re just like me” he said. “Remember, we never took vacations. It was work, work work.”
“Just go and have fun!” my dad said.
So we did.
I embraced what I considered a gift, thankful that David and I were able to go on a trip. A trip that we couldn’t afford without generous friends.
Abundance.
I've always had trouble with that concept. For me, I think I've lived out of a place of depravation -- always seeing what I don't have, and concluding that I don't deserve good things. I could spend years in the therapist's office trying to figure out why. But in the meantime, I'm discovering that abundance isn't about how much you do or don't have, but a way of seeing, and knowing what to look for.
I'm discovering that I tend to miss the true abundance in my life because I'm looking for it in all the wrong places. I moan because I don't have a big house, or a child, or enough free time to write. But in the meantime, I'm missing what's there. Abundance may come in smaller packages. In the breakfast my husband cooks for me, or the job filled with nice people and challenging work that helps me pay the mortgage. The girlfriends who call me for coffee, and evenings curled up with my cat by the fireplace.
When I really think about it, my life is overflowing with abundance.
The night we arrived on St. Thomas, our friends took us out for dinner. Then David and I collapsed in bed after a long day of travel, and after a long year of financial stress. I felt my body melt into the bed, and into my husbands body as I curled up next to him. I heard the tree frogs chirping outside, and the faint sound of the ocean waves. A warm sea breeze gently blew through the windows.
"We’re in paradise." I said. “Huh?” David grunted, as he was drifting off to sleep.
“We’re in paradise” I said again. But by then he was out, and I was left to my thoughts.
Maybe this coming year will bring more abundance. I will look for it. And for grace, in the small things. Maybe it will be in a child joining our family. If not, then maybe grace will take another form.
I've already seen how the past year has brought good things. David and I have grown closer because we have weathered the storm together. We have grown closer to family and friends, because we were forced to be vulnerable about our struggles. Our priorities were shocked into the proper order.
During the next year, I have faith that God will give me more than I could ever ask or think.... and I vow to keep my eyes open to see it.
