Dear Younger Self (Part 3)
a conversation about finances
*Note: This conversation continues a series of fictitious chats with myself about what I’ve learned over the last year. In case you’re a new subscriber, last January I found myself unwittingly reading a book that explained the contexts of Paul’s instructions to women in the Bible. This book used reason, historical records, context clues, and a huge amount of research to show how Paul probably wasn’t establishing men-only leadership models in the Christian church or home.
The fallout of reading this book has sent me on a year-long rethinking of what I’ve believed about men's and women’s roles in marriage and the organized church. After each discovery, the Lord prompted me to apply what I’d learned to my marriage.
The following is a conversation I would’ve found helpful regarding finances. To read the other conversations I’ve written in this vein, click the links below.
March Abby: Here you are again, stuck in misery.
December 2024 Abby: Bleah! I hate doing the finances. I used to love it and now I don’t. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I used to love showing Philip my charts and graphs. I used to love noticing trends and finding new ways to organize the money. Now, it’s drudgery. I hate it. And I can’t imagine switching to Quickbooks Online next month. There’s so much research I have to do to make that switch. It feels like a daunting dark cloud of unknown doom. Waaaaaaa!!!!!
March Abby: Wow! So dramatic.
December 2024 Abby: You don’t understand.
March Abby: Oh no, I do. But I think there’s more in this dark cloud of doom than financial misery. However, let’s chat about the finances. I think it’s significant that you’ve decided to change the system to something you both can access and enter data. That’s huge.
December 2024 Abby: Why is that significant? It makes sense. We close out 2024 on my old Mac laptop. We begin 2025 on my new Chromebook using Quickbooks Online. New year. New computer. New accounting system. It makes perfect sense.
March Abby: Oh yes. I wholeheartedly agree. But doesn’t this seem fitting in light of what you’ve learned this past year?
December 2024 Abby: You mean what the Bible says about men's and women’s roles?
March Abby: Or rather, what the Bible doesn’t seem to say. You’ve discovered that the apostle Paul probably didn’t establish a system to exclude women from leadership in the church and home.
December 2024 Abby: What the heck does that have to do with the finances?
March Abby: I think you’re clever enough to figure that out.
December 2024 Abby: How annoying I am in a few months. I don’t have a man-only leadership model for doing the finances in our home. I have have a primarily Abby leadership model.
March Abby: Exactly. Don’t you think that through studying this gender topic, the Lord has been showing you where you and Phil are not yet united in all things? Here is another area that needs growth.
December 2024 Abby: Are you saying that I’ve been doing it wrong all this time?
March Abby: You tell me. For almost eighteen years, you’ve been analyzing the data by yourself. You’ve been thinking up new ways to save and cut costs by yourself. You’ve been thinking ahead to future expenses by yourself. And now you’re the one who’s decided to change the system.
December 2024 Abby: Of course I am. The finances are my job and always have been. I was a book keeper before we were married. Why wouldn’t I keep doing the finances now? I’m better equipped at this sort of thing. I have an accountant’s brain. I’m better at organizing and categorizing numbers. It would’ve been cruel to leave this task to Phil.
March Abby: At the beginning of your marriage, yes, it would’ve been cruel. But that was a long time ago. How have you grown over these years? How have you been bringing him in more and more? How have you been allowing him part of the analysis of finances? Did you equip him? Did iron sharpen iron? Eighteen years is a long time to go without adjusting your system.
December 2024 Abby: I made some adjustments. I got input from other financially-minded people. We complete a financial spreadsheet together each month.
March Abby: Getting outside input is not the same as getting inside input. Outside input doesn’t have to live in your systems and experience its strengths and weaknesses. And while yes, you made some adjustments, mostly it stayed the same. You used the same program, same methods, same skills. It was your job, your duty, your cross to bear, and thus your burden. That kind of attitude will suck the life out of any job.
December 2024 Abby: Seriously. It has.
March Abby: But now it’s a new year and you’re starting a new operating system in more ways than one. Use the finances as a means to a greater end.
December 2024 Abby: What does that mean?
March Abby: I think it means setting your sights on a goal beyond just doing the finances each month. It means learning to do the finances as a way for you to develop one another’s character for heaven. That has not been your goal all these years.
December 2024 Abby: You got that right. My goal was to be efficient and organized, not united, and certainly not to grow character. Gosh, growing character through the finances? That doesn’t sound fun.
March Abby: It might be painful, but it’s a good kind of pain. Whenever we share the knowledge of our methods with someone, we risk their finding flaws in our systems. But this is where the growth can happen. If you always do the analyzing, how does Phil analyze and grow your systems? He can’t. You’ve refused him the opportunity and thus refused the growth you yourself might’ve received when he thinks through your financial systems differently.
December 2024 Abby: I wasn’t excluding him on purpose. It’s just how things went. I was good at bookkeeping. I was good at this.
March Abby: You were. But without iron sharpening iron, the iron grows dull. And when we make goals our objectives instead of unity with people, God will eventually stop up those wells.
December 2024 Abby: Meaning we lose the joy of doing the job.
March Abby: Exactly.
December 2024 Abby: I’ve certainly lost the joy in doing the finances. Do you think I’d get it back if we did finances more together?
March Abby: I know you will. New year. New computer. New operating system. New life. And you know what has to happen before a new spiritual life comes into being?
December 2024 Abby: Yes. A death.
March Abby: It’s a way of giving up the lesser things for the sake of the greater things.
December 2024 Abby: “Sigh” Yes. I guess so. I’ve seen the Lord do this sort of work in me before, so I know he can do it again. Thanks for the pep talk. So, I guess I’m supposed to pretend that we never had this conversation now. Right?
March Abby: You know, since I’m only three months around the corner, I don’t think it matters. Maybe the next conversation can be with yourself in real-time.
December 2024 Abby: Sounds good.
To read more like this, click a link below.
Good conversation!