Settling Debt, Mind, and . . .

Owning a great home troubles my mind and tummy as I do mental gymnastics to find ways to pay down the mortgage or to lock in a low interest rate. This home cost tons more than a missionary’s house in Nepal, Botswana, or Ghana. The missionaries I know have big families with hungry kids living in those wee footprint domiciles.

Can you imagine what they eat besides the sand that blows through? From my friend--who is mom to Ghanaian missionaries, I hear they only open the fridge twice a day to keep their little food supply fresh and sand-less. Next month these thin and tired missionaries will furlough at their mom’s home. Wonder if my friend needs practice hosting visitors Holy Week . . .

I ponder travel plans for that week as I sit tired, not thin, wondering what I can mooch on in the my stocked fridge. In still plump America we can mooch from our refrigerators and pantries whenever we want. We can even mooch fancy on diet choices from a world of choices—Mozzarella sticks, grape tomatoes, pecans anyone?

Since December my beloved hubby and I remain South Beach Dieters. MBH is so faithful to the diet even when the guys bring to work venison stew or barbecue pork butt. He brings salad greens with feta cheese and some other proteins. No bread!

If next week, however, we escape from the Deep South, we will find the diet a challenge. We’ll pack protein snacks, but not bags of romaine. Fast food places do offer us healthier choices en route. Soon, though, they’ll hunker down to further regulations. Chain restaurants, even vending machines are now required to list nutritional information per menu item. Sodas and decadent treats may get the Statist seal of “Verboten” and be taxed, costs that will pass onto the consumer.

Mortgages, taxes, money, property . . . makes me long for the day we were field missionaries, where we never worried about money or stuff! Yet with all I have now, I worry.

Let go, girl! In the Deep South peach and cherry trees bloom frothy. Daffodils open buttercup yellow. Magnolia branches tip luscious petals. If God so clothes ordinary trees and plants, will He not care for me? Will he not care for what He’s given to my family to steward, this home and yard? The birds again sing every morning and evening in the backyard. I can feed them, yet they’re already well fed by God-seeded plants. Do I trust God to give my family what we need to pay down debt?

Holy Week we remember what He relinquished, His Son, to give us debt-free eternal life. On that fact my mind fixes and settles.
As for my tummy, hmm. . .