Journal of a Living Lady #161

Nancy White Kelly

 

Did I tell you that Charlie and his bride-to-be, Tori, have already bought a house? Things sure aren’t like they were in the days Buddy and I wed. Buying a house before the marriage was extremely rare back then. It was nearly impossible unless you came from a family of wealth. Neither Buddy nor I did.  Like most of our peers, we both worked real jobs to put ourselves through high school and to help out with the family expenses.

 

Charlie did work as a teen, but he never had to. All of his needs and plenty of his wants were met. The same goes for our adopted son, Bobby,  and our twelve foster children. In hindsight, we might do it differently, but you only get one shot at raising children. Like most parents, we wanted them to have life better than we did. Or is it better?

 

We wonder sometimes if Charlie and Tori won’t be missing something. It was the struggles that made our marriage stronger. I remember the bliss of replacing milk crates with real chairs from money we had saved. Most of our early marriage furniture was either used donations or bought at auctions and thrift places. Most of it  lasted us our first twenty-five years of marriage and rambunctious children.  What we have now is not that fancy.  Yet, we have a satisfaction that we bought what we could afford and lived within our means.

 

Mortgage rates are now lower than we can remember. Charlie and Tori have good heads. They will probably do fine, but it is scary to see them start off life together with so much debt. Most likely our own parents thought we were pushing the envelope too when we bought our first house for a staggering $12,500.

 

Charlie and Tori are skipping the trailers, apartments and rental homes that traditionally mark the beginning years of wedded life. Their starter home is nicer than any we have lived in our entire thirty-seven years of marriage.  Buddy and I are genuinely happy for them. Tori’s parents share our joy.  We just hope they can handle those monthly mortgage payments.  Baring nothing unforeseen, they will. They have a sensible budget and a financial plan for the future.

 

 It would be hard to be critical of any young couple who, before paying bills, write a check for ten percent of their total income to the Lord’s work. We are pleased that Charlie and Tori have their priorities straight about what is really important in the long run. It is not houses or land. There won’t be any U-haul trailers following behind the hearse.

 

What we are seeing demonstrated is faith in action. Underlined in Charlie’s Bible is a verse that says, “See ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.”

 

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nancyk@alltel.net