“Worthless,” Elvis muttered, “I may as well be a cow.”
Great story. If you haven’t had a chance, check it out. It’s about “Elvis” the Rooster. He learns the magic words from a grub stealing, homewrecker peacock. In the latest installment, when the sun rises despite a hoarse Elvis the rooster, his local neighborhood don, Little Willie (also a rooster, but he has feathers in a lot of coops) helps Elvis restore his broken sense of usefulness.
Last spring, my wife and I came to a difficult fork in the road. We were pregnant with our 3rd child, a baby girl. I was working full-time, thankfully, and she was working 2 ½ days a week, as she had been since our first was born. We had determined to keep our kids out of a daycare system for as long as we could, for several reasons, only one of which was financial. We had been paying down debt, keeping expenses down and trying to be fiscally conservative, with the long term hope of having a great enough margin to have one of us home full time.
It was time to decide.
I go to a midsize church. I love it there, but it’s been as much a trial as a joy. I mean let’s face it- the church is filled with jacked up people. I include myself in that category of course- I would usually assume that, but I think in this instance it is wise to be sure to make that clear. We’ve had our share of problems, as any living church will- but I definitely call it a blessing. The people I worship with are genuine and sincere. Parents and sons and daughters, friends, mentors and students, each trying to see how Jesus has called them and what that means.
We’ve tried as a faith community to have an impact in our community. We strive to shine Jesus’ light, and bring life to the lost. Our mission statement used to be that we wanted to “Help people Find Jesus, Love Jesus, and Grow in Jesus.” Over the years that has been refreshed, clarified, and revisted many times. It still lies near the core of our value system. But the vagueness and ambiguity of the statement allowed us the freedom to try many paths, many ways, many, many programs. I won’t say that we failed. I won’t. God has worked through all of those programs, all of those efforts. I mean seriously, if God waited for us to get it right before giving His anointing, we’d all be very, very screwed.
One of the programs that has been instrumental to our existence and identity has been a Christian pre-school/daycare run with in our church. It has been an independent entity that we have subsidized, housed and nurtured. Another has been a food pantry. The food pantry, I have to say, I think really distilled our mission.
So, Elvis wakes up, and struts up to the top of the chicken coop. As he’s waiting for the first hint of dawn to cue his crow, he opens his mouth and sucks in a big bug. AACK! AACK! COUGH!
Just looking at the numbers, it was quite apparent that we weren’t going to be living on my income alone.
To keep ourselves to the point, I’ll summarize the obvious. Suga’ Momma was “worth” WAY more than me in the marketplace. Period. We prayed, I agonized, she waited, we decided. I was going to give up my job at a booming company during a recession economy, and she was going to work. Her company, and her boss breathed a HUGE sigh of relief when she told them. I heard somebody actually wet their pants. I won’t say who.
Since then, I’ve been at home. Eating bon-bons, watching soaps and sleeping in has been pretty good to me. I go through slippers like crazy, but more than make it up by only wearing a bathrobe most of the time. So no more expensive jeans for me.
Watching my two boys destroy the house from my rocker has been quite informative too. I didn’t realize how much life I was missing at work.
My biggest struggle, since leaving the “productive world” has been knowing how to appraise myself. What am I worth? I used to be worth about 600, 700 bucks a week. Now?
“I might as well be a cow,” Elvis muttered.
Elvis was on the one hand amazed, but also tremendously dismayed that the animals and people, the plants and sun began their day--- without him or his crow.
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