What is it to live just below financial "self sufficiency"?
* Food assistance
* Energy assistance
* Medical assistance

and still having a hard time making ends meet.

* Enormous student loans to repay
* Mortgage payments near half our monthly income
* Old cars breaking down and needing repair

Two working parents
Can't afford childcare
Can't afford dental care
Can't afford so many things...

It's like being "almost" healthy --
well enough to live and
look normal

but every day taking a toll on the body

unseen

but there.

Bringing you down over time

so that one day when you CRASH

people wonder why.

You looked fine.


Just Below Sufficient is no place to be.

How do I help my children have advantages
I can't afford
that might keep them from this same situation?

What is it to be family
when work requires both
mother and father to be
single parents most of the time?

We are following our calls
Working hard
Doing the best we know how

YET -
at the edge of every day the stress
threatening to overtake us

Waiting for the days we will CRASH
and hoping for the miracle of
better pay for our work.

I know that I need to prove myself
I know my experience is dwarfed by the height of some around me

but

I also know that wisdom dwells within me
and that I am not a "typical" twenty-five-year-old.

They hired me. They saw potential in me to accomplish great things.
I need them to trust the spark of potential they saw when they hired me

and

support me in fullness as I prove myself
to them
and to everybody else.

I need them to believe that I can accomplish
what I will accomplish

and for them to challenge me to take on things
they know I can do

and support me when I take on challenges
even when they think I will fail

being ready to encourage me to continue
even if I do fail

knowing that within me is the ability, the talent, the desire
to do what it is I need to do in this life

and supporting the person that I am
by supporting what I am called to do.