05/22/14

you have not been missed

The days of the Tazza Mia salad bar have come to an end, and I'm not mad about it. The whole set-up and tear-down took a lot of work, especially once our staffing kept getting slashed. It's one less hurdle we'll have to leap when the word filters down from on high giving us our closing date. It could be any day now. It could be six months from now. We just don't know. I'm riding it out until the doors shut (or until I move up to Wisconsin). The gutting of the cafe has coincided with the gutting of hours, and everyone's started losing shifts (I'm down to just two shifts a week starting this next week). Thankfully I have enough hours with Walk of Joy to pay my bills, but it makes saving up for Wisconsin a wee bit trickier.

I've gotten around $1000 saved up for the move.

It doesn't sound like a lot, but it's not that bad.

Especially considering I technically live below the poverty line.

I'm thinking I'll save $2000-2500 and then move up there.

Maybe that'll be before August. Hopefully it'll be before August.

I've grown disenchanted with Cincinnati, and with each day that passes, I yearn to leave this city behind and start my life with the Wisconsinite in the frigid north. It isn't so much that I'm anxious for Wisconsin; it's more so that I'm anxious to begin living life beside her. I'm thankful for all the benefits of technology, how we're able to stay in contact throughout the day via phone calls and text messages, but it doesn't make up for "real life in real time." That's what I'm aching for. I'd love to be settled down in Ripon (or somewhere nearby) by the time she returns from her three-week frolic in Japan with her sister and brother-in-law. It'd be nice to be there welcoming her home, to our home in the same state and in the same town. I'm ready for this LDR bullcrap to be over with.

As I've been working eighty hours a week (but going down to seventy starting next week) I've been trying to save up as much as I can. I've jokingly told people that me working eighty hours a week as a part-time barista and full-time DCP amounts to about twenty hours a week at a "real job." Not that these aren't real jobs, but our culture often drills in the idea that to be successful, to be a "real man," you need $10,000 in the bank account and a 401(k). I have neither. My prayer is that of Proverbs 30.8-9:

Do not make me poor or rich, but give me each day what I need; for if I have too much, I might forget You are the One who provides, saying, "Who is the Lord?" Or if I do not have enough, I might become hungry and turn to stealing and thus dishonor the good name of my God.

(The Voice)

It's always encouraging to be reminded that what matters isn't income or achievements but willingness, ability, and propensity to work. I have all three of those. A man can support his family working at a fast-food restaurant. I know a man with four sons and a wife who sells cellphones and provides for his family; he doesn't trust in his own resources but in God, and God always provides. Such testaments to God's provision encourage me. My hope is that I don't become so stressed out about how much money I'm bringing in that I forget that provision far transcends what's in the bank account. Many men make millions but provide for their families far less than men who work minimum wage jobs. I sincerely believe that the greatest provision a man must make for his family is spiritual and emotional. A man can afford to give his wife new outfits every week and to give his children new toys and cool gadgets every other day, but that doesn't mean he's providing for them. A Christian man's greatest acts of provision for his family is washing his wife in the water of the Word (Eph 5.26), teaching the scriptures to his children (Deut 6.6-7), and bringing them up in "the discipline and instruction of the Lord" (Eph 6.4). My hope is that in my own stress and anxiety over how I will physically provide for my family (and wrestling to trust God in all of that above all else) I don't forfeit the greatest calling I'll have for my future family.