God And Money

This week has been strange for me. For the last two days my MPs have been all about my ideas about God and money (I nearly capitalized money...how ironic). Why would God get involved with money, I pondered. Money is such a messy, guilty, ambivalent thing. Money causes so many problems...well, okay. I know it's the people that cause the problems in the name of money. People also cause problems in the name of God. The reality, I suppose, is that people just cause problems period and blame God, money, relatives, and other things.

I am playing with the idea that God wants to give me money. Maybe God has a giant pot of gold for everyone - we just need to get our safety umbrellas out of the way and let it rain on us. I am also playing with the idea that if everyone had enough money there wouldn't be hyperinflation so it would actually feel like enough money.

I have been counting money since yesterday, and saying yes to things people offer me (like my coworker buying me lunch yesterday!). I have noticed I spend money on food. Starbucks gets money from me a few times a week - the grocery store gets regular money from me - and restaurants get money from me. I am trying to spend like I do normally and not think of this as an exercise in making myself wrong about how I spend money. Trying. Money has so much guilt tied into it for me that thinking about money I feel like I should cease spending altogether.

I once had stock (yes, a dot-commer I was) valued at lots of money. I didn't do anything with it out of fear. I wasn't selfishly waiting for it to be worth more, I was more shell-shocked at the possibility of stock options being worth so much. (I got that worth all mixed up with my worth which is a story of a different color.) I was a bit afraid of taxes, but mostly I was afraid that if people who knew me, knew I had money, they would be hammering on my door asking for a slice. I liked my anonymity of facquaintences and relatives thinking I had no money instead.

I did nearly nothing with the stock and now, of course, it's really worth nothing.

I beat myself up sometimes by saying that why would God give me a second chance at big money when I blew my first chance so horribly. Why would God bother with me? I figure God would leave me to my own devices with money.

So that is the God I have been believing in - a God who gets involved in all of my life except my financial life.

What if I created a new kind of God? What if instead God is just waiting for me to ask for help? What if God wants me to stop beating myself up for the past so she/he/it can do it to me one more time?

Hi God,
As you know, I really suck at asking for help. I am also having issues in my head with money. Would you please help me with money? Would you take a wrecking ball to the brick wall between me and money so it can flow my way? Would you help me, please?

Thank you,
Julie

There. That's the best I can do for now. Let's see what happens.