When Laurie and I were about to get married, we were finishing up grad school and we decided to pack up and move to Portland, Oregon. We drove from Chicago to Atlanta for our wedding. The day before the ceremony we went to the courthouse to make arrangements. The lady asked me where we lived. Being in transition we had no address to give her and I just told her so. She then asked me where we worked and I told her again we were in transition and we’d be getting jobs. She said, “I know how it is.” And looked at me wide eyed. I had no idea what she was getting at.
When we got our paperwork back it said that we were homeless and unemployed. We laughed at how silly that was. We were not worried about that, but it turned out to be something of a prophetic statement. After several weeks of searching for a job in Portland, I applied for a job to work the midnight shift at a convenience store in a bad part of town. I remember praying that God would give me that job and I remember Laurie begging me not to apply. It was a tough time.
I financed our honeymoon by allowing a large pharmaceutical company to lock me up in their facilities for two weeks, telling me when and what I could eat and testing antibiotics on me. On the second day one of the other participants broke out in a rash that covered his entire body. On the last day they drew blood from me every 30 minutes for 24 hours. Like I said it was a tough time.
Thankfully, the current economic crisis has not been as tough for us, but I know it has been for others. Religious ministers and people of faith have been quick, over the centuries, to talk negatively about money. But the simple fact exists that we need it. When we don’t happen, it’s, well…tough.
Genesis starts off with God working and calling Adam and Eve to work. We were created to work and money is like air; we need it to breathe. We need money to survive. This is most recognized by those who are unemployed. And unemployment has other problems which need to be offset which we will explore in a following post.
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