Today outside my back door there are birds singing in the pine tree. I am sitting at a computer that was paid for long ago, in a chair on which I owe nothing, and in a house that is not mine...the bank still owns it. As the bad economic news continues to roll over all of us, the debt in our lives has become a real focus of my energy. We are setting goals for getting out of debt. for us that means one big credit card, a truck payment, and of course the really biggie...the house.

The truth is that we have not always made wise decisions concerning money. We are not the best "tithers" (although we sincerely try) and we have spent money that borrowed from future earnings far too often. We gave our children and sometimes our grandchildren things we could not afford, that even perhaps they might not have needed, because we love them and sincerely wanted to shower them with blessings. We went on vacations that we could not really afford, not often, but more than we should have. We sound spectacularly like our government, don't we?

A few years back Dear Husband and I were "downsized" and unfortunately for us, that did not refer to our body size, but rather to the loss of my husband's thirty-two plus years job. It was a real kick in the head, and since then we have been trying to learn from it. I think in many ways God has used this jolt to help us grow in our faith and understanding of God's plans for us.

Don't misunderstand, we went through our "mourning" period. We suffered under the same delusion that many folks of our generation had, that hard work and giving 100% and then some would keep you "safe." Ha! Dear Husband did not work for nine months, and then got a menial job earning less than one-third what he had earned in his previous employment. We had to pay our own way through COBRA for health insurance, and that completely depleted our savings account. The blessing is that we received a ten month severance package and we never went a day without health insurance or a week with out a pay check. God is so good! DH now has a job earning about half what he did, and I am working again, so God just keeps raining down the blessings!

My wonderful Grandma always said that you had to look for the "silver lining" in the dark cloud, so I think we are getting better at that. The upside for us is that we grew up on and around farms. We know how to plant and harvest, how to scrape and scrimp, and make do. Dear Husband is joyfully planting seeds and nursing along his baby plants in his basement workroom. Since he has been "cut back" (again, sigh) to four days a week in his new job, he has been building a compost bin for the backyard and planning his summer garden. All those things which we learned long ago will hopefully serve us well as we head into uncertain economic times. I am trying to master the art of baking our own bread, instead of paying nearly $4 a loaf at Kroger. We do not dare raise chickens (Columbus says no way) but we are looking for ways to reduce our debt and our use of the world's limited resources, by making do with what we have. Since we both grew up in homes with an abundance of children and a lack of abundance in funds, this is no big deal, and certainly nothing new.

We are still enjoying life, and we have learned to count our blessings far better than if we had never "lost" my husband's job. God is always at work in our lives, we just need to open our eyes and see His hand at work.