I remember very clearly the first time I felt self-conscious about our income.  Our lives had just taken another twist, turn, and dip despite our careful planning and had left us with a small food budget, $50 per 2 weeks.  And, by food budget, I mean ALL FOOD.  It included any eating out (which was non existant unless someone paid our tab) and all food purchases (if we ran out of bread or milk, too bad, we had to wait until next paycheck).  I learned to cut coupons and plan meals around the least expensive ingredients and quite frankly, we ate a lot of food we didn’t really want to eat.  It was hard, but we knew we could do it.  Then, one day, I put the word out and was asking for recipes.  Inexpensive recipes.  Recipes that one could fix on a dime.

But, apparently my dime and other people’s dimes somehow translate into different currencies because I began receiving emails calling for ingredients that would quite possibly blow half of my 2 week’s budget in just one sitting.  Even then, we kept our heads up.  It wasn’t until an email floated across my screen that said…

“Do you mean cheap or like, ‘food stamp’ poor?”

And, for some reason, that got to us.  Or, it got to me.  My pride (such an ugly thing) was bruised.  Food stamps had gotten such a bad rep and to me, food stamps were what individuals got when they didn’t feel like working and just wanted to live off the government.  Food stamps meant you failed.  Food stamps meant you were lazy.

Pride.  It’s such an ugly and destructive thing.  Pride.  It’s something God has been working on within me.

And, today?  Today, it was us who were waiting in line to apply for food stamps.

During the long wait (I still have no idea what exactly we were waiting ON since there was nobody in front of us), I saw a brochure laying nearby.  The front read:

The

Benefits

Of

Planning

Your

Family

Be sure you are ready.

It is your decision.

You can plan your life.

And, I laughed.  It was a brochure about family-planning, or rather, how not to have a baby.  But, what struck me was not the discussion centered around IUDs and Condoms, but that it said that YOU could plan your life.  –Which, as good as it sounds in theory, means absolutely nothing because it is not OUR plans that matter at all – it is HIS plan, something we can’t control no matter how hard we try.

So, when the sweet woman behind the desk told me we would not be able to receive any food stamp help despite the fact we were WELL below the income requirements (due to him receiving unemployment and not working checks) for a family of four, I had to remind myself that it’s not MY PLANS that will save us and keep us afloat.  It is HIM.  And, regardless of whether or not the government will help us, He will never stop working in our lives, always providing the things we need when we need them the most.

I have complete faith in that, and I will not let pride stand in the way of fully admitting …

that I am nothing without He who made me.

Welcome back!