Finances

The part of housekeeping I look forward to least, but never actually hate once I'm doing it, is doing our finances. The math and the categorizing are actually kind of fun, but I always dread having to drag out notebook and pen and paper and checkbook and bills and filing folder and all that other stuff that seems to take over about a ten foot square area of floor whenever I do it.

My husband and I make a budget every year - and this last year we did it over a delicious dinner out - and then keep track of what we spend the rest of the year, and see how we do when the end of the year comes 'round again. Our fiscal year starts on our anniversary, because that's when we first started holding everything in our life in common. (Remember the old marriage vows? "With my body, I thee worship; with all my worldly goods, I thee endow"?)

Anyway, I was trying to think, last time I was about it, how this part of my housekeeping could possibly have anything to do with the church year, when I remembered how often the Bible talks about money. It talks about it A LOT. And I realized that taking care of the budget is what enables us to give money at church. If I didn't keep the checkbook in order, well, we couldn't write a check for the offering plate.

It's a simple connection, but it makes me a little bit happier about a chore I don't like.

And it makes me think that there's probably a connection between everything I do at home and the Christian life. Maybe some chores (like reading Bible stories to my babies) have obvious connections and some chores (like dusting. really, why?) have subtle ones, but they all have them.

And if there is something I'm doing that I find has no connection to my Christian life, maybe I should not be doing it.


:D and there's your homemaking reflection for the day.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica