On Making Money (or not)

As I reflect on five years of life together with my sweet Valentine, I have come to realize that in a lot of ways, the greatest gift Aaron and I have ever been given was also the most miserable two months of our lives, that have defined and determined the course of the rest of our lives. In January and February of 2010, Aaron was finishing his last semester at Wheaton, and I was a new bride, new graduate, and newly unemployed! Before that January, I hadn't really thought about life as a long, glorious journey of becoming. I had mostly just glided along through college, picking a major based first on what I loved, and then based on who I loved. I graduated with a degree in Spanish in 5 semesters just so that I could marry Aaron and (ideally) support him until he finished in May. Well, the ideal doesn't always turn out, and truly I am so glad it doesn't.

That January I was supposed to start an entry-level job at a Bridal Salon, which I thought would be fun and exciting and perhaps put me on the trajectory to be a Bridal Consultant or Party Planner (careers that I still believe would be highly entertaining and challenging for me.) On the fifth day of our week-long honeymoon, I got a call that the job I was supposed to have had fallen through, and so began my days of unemployment. Financial, emotional, and physical burdens aside, unemployment is in so many ways a real gift. For 20-year-old Andrea, unemployment meant a chance to, for the very first time, truly question what it was that I wanted to do with my life. In truth, my unemployment didn't last long. I worked that spring temporarily for the US Census and in April I was offered a position that became the real push for what has now become my real (for now) career of academic study and instruction. But for both Aaron and I, those months of dark, cold, penniless unemployment have affected and will affect the course of our lives from here on out, and more importantly, our attitudes towards work and money that have evolved into something entirely counter-cultural but so life-giving for our family. (An ideology that falls somewhere along these lines.)

In 2010, I began to understand my vocation, and later on, in 2011, Aaron had his own season of self-discovery, which also came through unemployment. Both times, at the time, the financial and emotional strain seemed overwhelming, but now I have learned to see God's hand at work even through our own need. I reflect on this as I approach a new season, unsure if God will bring us through yet another season of unemployment for either one or both of us over this summer and fall. This time, I am trying to learn to reject the fear and doubt, embracing what may come as a chance for God to work on our hearts and lives for His own glory. Who knows but that He has an even greater plan for our lives than the one I have set, and through a semester or two of joblessness, He may bring it about. As a planner and a spender, it is oh so hard for me to accept that perhaps for us, financial stability is not and should not be the goal. It is a difficult thing to explain to a culture that so values savings, mortgages, and 401Ks that perhaps God's plan for our own family goes beyond the traditional "American" financial plan. For us, this calling to financial freedom has meant such drastic measures as quitting a "good" job in search of "greater" volunteering, the absence of a budget in favor of living without expectations, giving whatever and whenever we are asked without thought of the bottom line, and living in such a way that income doesn't matter as long as we are doing what God wants. Even for our families, who love and support us, seeing God's plan for us in the midst of grad school, seminary, and now a pregnancy may be a challenge to their desire for us to be financially "stable". Although it may go beyond explanation, the truth is that through seasons of drought, Aaron and I have come to understand that our marriage and our family exists not to succeed financially, but to follow faithfully wherever God may lead, with the understanding that the ultimate goal is not comfort but calling.

And part of me wishes such unemployment on each of my siblings, each of my friends, and each of my students, because for me, it was the greatest gift I ever received.