Poor

So now I'm just scraping by. I had been told I would be making more than twice as much as I actually have been making. Figures. I never make as much as I was supposed to. Even in situations where a certain pay is about guaranteed, I somehow manage to get paid less. This was not really one of those situations, but I did confirm it with the other waiters first before getting my hopes up. Yet alas, there are now too many people working there each night and fewer people coming in to eat than even just a couple weeks before I came. Reminds me of Endless Summer: "You should'a been here yesterday!" My timing is impeccibly bad. I wonder if I started being on time in my regular life if I would start coming into things like jobs and schooling and other miscellaneous things at the right time too.

I've been having fun clipping coupons and watching the grocery store for good deals. It's probably good that I'm so hard pressed for money or I wouldn't have the motivation to learn to save it. For now though, its been enough like some fun competition that I'd probably do it even if I was living some sort of cushy life. Hehe, like looking through the weekly deals while getting a pedicure and sipping champagne with a strawberry. But I don't like champagne, so I guess it is just as well that I'm poor.

I'm having this problem with thinking that I'm overdramatizing my situation. For once, I'm not. But what makes me think that I am is that I keep thinking in terms of borrowing money from my parents. For instance, I might tell my boss that I really can't go home early tonight because I needed tonight's take to go buy groceries (as was the case tonight). But then I think to myself, gosh its not like you are some destitute person like some people in this world, when the actual reality is - I am, but I just happen to have generous parents. If I really needed the money for food, I could get it from them. The change that needs to happen in my mind is, that is only a reasonable thing to ask for if I have exhausted the available options. Pleading with my boss is one of my options and there is nothing wrong or melodramatic about portraying my situation as one of needing that money for my sustenance. The availability of charity does not make the need for the paycheck any less real.

But if charity is available, it can know that I have the most use for Target gift cards and an ironing board.

What I Left

"If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell."
Matthew 5:29-30 NKJV

"For I was envious of the boastful, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no pangs in their death, but their strength is firm...Therefore pride serves as their necklace; violence covers them like a garment...They scoff and speak wickedly concerning oppression; they speak loftily.
When I thought how to understand this, it was too painful for me- Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I understood their end. Surely You set them in slippery places; you cast them down to destruction. Oh, how they are brought to desolation, as in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors. As a dream when one awakes, so Lord, when You awake, you shall despise their image. Thus my heart was grieved, and I was vexed in my mind. I was so foolish and ignorant; I was like a beast before You. Nevertheless I am continually with You; you hold me by my right hand. You will guide me with Your counsel, and afterward receive me to glory."
Psalm 73, excerpts NKJV

Thank you, Dr. Bates, you brought me back to the only Refuge.