About a month ago, I threw what amounted to a pity party. You see, I was single for a long time which meant I had a fair amount of disposable income. As a teacher, it wasn’t a ton of disposable income but regardless I had some. I was lamenting the fact that since being married I had lost any semblance of disposable income. After becoming a vocational missionary, my take home pay had decreased while I had added another person to my living arrangement...awesome.
Like I said, a bonafide pity party. The fact is years ago I remember telling a friend that my dream was to be a missionary and live overseas full time. During the conversation I remember telling him it was weird because I knew my dream would in many ways be more difficult than the life I was living at the time. Living in a developing country isn’t easy by any measure, and it took years to wrestle with God over giving up some creature comforts I was accustomed to such as disposable income.
To be fair, I imagine most people give up having a disposable income either when they get married or when they have kids at the latest. Things are just more expensive paying for 2 or 2+. I can remember asking friends through the years if getting married and having kids was worth it. Almost without fail the response was that it was difficult at times but more than worth it.
Now, I get it. While marriage has been awesome so far, I’m sure we’ll go through difficulties just like everyone else. But most importantly, it is worth it. Marriage is better than disposable income by far. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that while in the process of learning to die to oneself in order to take on a new and improved two become one identity. Steffani is an inspiration to me almost daily, and you can’t put a dollar amount on that.
No comments:
Post a Comment