Spending money for What?

So I shipped MLB the vase her mother gave her that she recently asked about. That cost $9.55. And I thought to share a horse-decorated skirt and a horse history book, both which Kilby cast off, with our horsey friends the little Gilman girls in Northfield. That cost $9.27. Cheapest shipping. And I wonder if it was bad stewardship. I could have taken the stuff I sent Gilmans to a thrift shop. I hate throwing perfectly good stuff in the trash, thinking that is bad stewardship and the destructiveness not in keeping with our imago dei (I grant all things in this temporal world decay). But I also considered what a delight it might be for Esther and Abigail to get a box in the mail and to find in it such treasures. I really didn't have much choice about Nonnie's vase.

And then I spent the money for gas to travel to 595 and Flamingo to spend $5.75 washing eight old pillows that now smell like laundromat water, three of which I had to cut open to rearrange. All of which will be useful only to use as throw pillows on the boys' beds. Was this bad stewardship too?

I'm not sure I'm making reasonable judgments sometime.

I hate that creativity, homemaking, and generosity is getting more expensive, and resentful that it is decreasing liberty making it so.

May God be praised by what I have done today.

Facebook Encouragement

Mary: Trying to get back into freelance editing and writing...being a "stay at home mom" for the past 7.5 years is making my resume seem lame. I just want to make some $$ for the fam.

Debby: Jehovah jireh. May He bring you the work He has saved for you to do.

Mary: I think that may be just the problem, Aunt Debby. I don't want to do editing or writing work, I don't want to split my energy into making money, Bill doesn't want me to do anything more than what I'm doing, but I feel pressure to add to our income so we can move forward and that's the field in which I've earned money in the past. What I really want to do is just keep doing what I'm doing and eventually get to be a midwife's assistant and then a midwife when the kids are grown. I think that's the work God has truly saved for me to do. We've been in a holding pattern for years financially and I'm ready to move forward.

Debby: Ooooo. Thanks for sharing. Well, if the status quo is not only the desire of your heart, but also of your God-given head, then I think the real problem is not trusting God with the status quo. He WILL provide. Enjoy your kids.

I once thought perhaps a particular painting commission years ago would help us along and prayed that God would give me the work if it would please Him. It didn't come. We're still here. I later realized that it would have so disrupted the real work I was doing, that I thanked God for keeping me where I was.

Perhaps the best way to help the family is to continue economizing. Pour yourself, your knowledge, into your beautiful kids, preparing them to become productive themselves. God grant you all contentment!

Mary: Aunt Debby--wonderful wisdom. Thank you. I hear you, and in hearing you I have gained a contentment. I KNOW I am doing what God wants me to do with my family to my fullest ability. Bill and I have always wanted our family to run the way it does, so we need to remember what you have said and what we believe and just keep focused on what we really care about.

Yesterday at 6:36pm

Lisa: This was a very encouraging post for me and what I needed to hear; thank you to Mary and her Aunt Debby! :)