Sowing and Reaping

A few weeks ago I posted this as my status on Facebook:

Just say you had been saving to update your kitchen with granite, new decor, stainless appliances, and a remodeled island. You now have enough $$. You meet a family with no furniture, no money to get their kids routine medical care, wearing clothes with holes, and eating what food stamps will provide. You help them ...somewhat, but will you feel good updating your kitchen when you could be helping them?

This was not a hypothetical scenario.  I really do have money to update my kitchen and I know a family in these terrible physical and financial circumstances.  Since my post the family was threatened with eviction and I found out they owe $2700 in back rent.  This is in addition to their over $900 in back car payments, medical bills that include a recent 3 week hospitalization with no insurance, and probably other financial black holes I don't know about.

My post generated numerous comments and two in particular got me thinking.  One friend encouraged me.  She said that I should be happy that I had helped the family and that I had saved the money--and that I deserved the updated kitchen.  Quickly another friend chimed in and focused on the word deserved, wondering whether the other family deserved their horrible circumstances.

Since then I've thought a lot about what I deserve.

Both the mom of this family, Alexa (name changed), and I started our lives with similar circumstances.  Since we each now live in Georgia, I think it's unusual that both she and I grew up about 40 miles apart in New Jersey.  We both had married parents and one younger sibling.  Our moms were the same age when they had us.  I'm pretty sure our two families had similar annual income.

However, at some point our life stories diverged. 

I babysat and waitressed, saving half of my income to use in college and buying my clothes out of the remaining money.  I joined sports teams, participated in numerous extracurricular activities, and studied well enough to earn good grades.  In high school Alexa joined a gang, and by age 17 she was no longer in school and living with her boyfriend.  By then she had already given birth to her oldest child, and she left him behind when she moved out.

I went to college and eventually earned a masters degree.  I later married and had three children.  Alexa and her boyfriend committed insurance fraud, which resulted in criminal record.  Her six children have three fathers, which makes life more complicated.  Her current relationship involves domestic violence, which she both gives and gets.

I use coupons when going out to dinner and at the grocery store.  Each month I pay extra principal on my mortgage so I can pay off my house sooner.  I keep putting off the Disney vacation because it seems extravagant.  Her car lease is beyond her budget and she relies upon friends, family, and various ministries to bail her out when she cannot make the payments.  She's on public assistance for food, child care, and now medical care.  Though she's on food stamps, this week Alexa complained to me that "she picked up Chinese food" and no one appreciated her effort in getting it.  Today she has no gas in her car, but she's been to Disney two times in the past three years.

While I've certainly made numerous mistakes along the way, overall I'm thinking I've made better choices.  So does that mean I deserve my better life situation? 

Yes and no.  Today I'll talk about the "yes" part.

I think the principle of "sowing and reaping" applies here.  I knew "sowing and reaping" was a Biblical concept, but a quick Bible Gateway search showed me that it's in numerous Bible illustrations.  In the more agricultural community of a couple thousand years ago, I think farming illustrations would be easy to understand.  In general--you plant good seed, you get a good harvest.  Plant little or bad seed and reap a poor harvest.  Sowing and reaping is mentioned in Job and Proverbs, Luke and 2 Corinthians, and many other Bible books.  Here it is in Galatians 6:7, "Do not be deceived:  God cannot be mocked.  A man reaps what he sows."  While the Bible says that this doesn't apply in every individual case (at least from our vantage point here in the world) it is a general principle that holds true.

Sow crime, buy what you can't afford, and the results won't be good.  

This week I found out that Alexa has just gone back on illegal drugs, causing her to delay acting when the baby is crying or when the 3 year is uncomfortable because she had "an accident" and is sitting around in messy pants.  Buying drugs certainly can't help the family budget, and it's a barrier in getting and keeping a job, and gets in the way of adequately mothering her 5 young children.  She's continuing to scatter bad seed.

So that's my "yes" answer.  In many ways I have sown a different kind of seed compared to Alexa, and I'm reaping a better harvest. 

I tried to type, "It feels uncomfortable to say it, but I deserve more than she deserves," as the conclusion to the last paragraph.  But I deleted it at least twice, and you will notice I didn't leave in in there.  Regarding the principle of sowing and reaping, I do deseve more. 

However, that's not the whole story. 

(Don't even get me started on the children, because her children don't deserve the terrible atmosphere they are living in, just as mine don't particularly deserve the material comfort that surrounds them.)

So I'll address the "no" aspect--why I don't deserve more--in my next post.  I'm hoping that one will be more fun to write.







 

The Divine Pursuit

I'm new to the blogging thing and I'm thrilled that Nicole Unice has shared this guest post with me.  And I'm not just saying that because her children share approximately 25% of my DNA (for those of you not as much of a biology dork as I am, I'll just tell you that she's married to my brother).  I met Nicole when she was a bright-eyed just-turned-16 college freshman, and though she's quite a bit younger than I am I have learned a lot from her.  When she started blogging I remember saying to my mother, "I didn't think it was possible, but I actually love Nicole more now since I've been reading her blog."  So, I encourage you to subscribe to The Stubborn Servant and to take part in the online community she is launching on September 15th.  If you're in the Atlanta area like I am, I think you'd really enjoy coming to hear her speak at WOW on October 6th. 

Here's Nicole:

Becoming a counselor is a weird sort of schooling. What other graduate program teaches you how to listen, ask good questions, and read interpersonal dynamics? Who but future counselors study nonverbal cues, birth order, and “solution-focused questions?” Counseling techniques easily transform into entertaining party tricks: “Let me guess,” I imagine saying to my unsuspecting acquaintance while swirling my drink, “your deepest fear is turning into your mother, whom you find yourself resembling more each day?”


There’s another side to studying therapist techniques. Developing questions that pry back even the hardest shell takes practice. And there’s only one person that accompanies me to sleep, to the bathroom, to work—other than my toddler. It’s me. I am the unwilling recipient of my own therapy.

So I paid attention when I got all emotional about the story of Jonah. Do you know him? The bible Jonah, the telling-God-N-O Jonah, the swallowed-by-a-fish Jonah? Think way back to Vacation Bible School. You probably sang a song about him or maybe smoothed him up on a feltboard next to a smiling whale.

Jonah disobeys and isn’t loving, or at least, that’s the point when we tell the VBS version. But when I prepared a teaching series for a women’s group on the book of Jonah, I found myself stirred up, almost resentful, of what Jonah had become in those children’s stories. Like Jonah is a flat caricature painted by a heavenly hand to make us feel good about ourselves. Hey, at least I didn’t have to be swallowed by a big fish to listen to God. At least I wouldn’t defy God like that.

I got emotional because I thought Jonah could have had some reasons for running. That maybe following God’s orders and going to Nineveh was something excruciatingly hard for Jonah, something that felt impossible to do.

And then the therapist in me listened closely and asked a piercing question: “Hmmm….interesting. What are your Ninevehs?”

Hmmm is right.

I pondered my own Ninevehs and the Ninevehs of those I’ve counseled. I thought about the pattern of fleeing, obeying and resisting God found in Jonah—and found in me. I considered the things in life that would make me want to lob a fat N-O in God’s face, modern-Day Ninevehs like:

Living joyfully in difficult relationships.

Struggling through a hard marriage (or waiting on a good one).

Fighting with addictions.


Battling fear.

Making peace with the past. Wrestling with unforgiveness. Learning to wait. Embracing uncertainity. Raising difficult children. Choosing to care for aging parents. Going back to work when you want to stay home. Having children. Not having children. And the list goes on….

Holy Spirit calling: Jonah is me.

Jonah is you, too, if you’ve ever wanted space from God. If you’ve ever escaped from Him in heart or in action. Jonah is you if you’ve ever wondered how or why God would talk to you—and if you would obey. I know one thing: Jonah’s not a platitude to mount on a cross-stitch and hang in the bathroom. It’s raw, real life. It’s one of the many things I love about God--the way He enters our disheveled reality. The way He knows our crazy souls. And the way He shows us His soul for us, and for all his creation.

If you can relate, take heart, and take another look at Jonah. You might just find a friend.

Nicole Unice is a counselor and blogger working in family ministry at Hope Church in Richmond, VA. Her six-week guided study of Jonah, The Divine Pursuit, is available as a printed version or free download on her website. An online community using The Divine Pursuit begins 9/15.