Unexpected Income???

I finally have Sundays off and have been able to go to church. I’d been hearing about a dynamic local ministry and decided to give it a try. It’s based on science of the mind and I like it very much. They frequently bandy about words and phrases like “abundance and prosperity” and “unexpected income.” What ARE they going on about? I thought. I was intensely in survival mode and feeling as poor as a church mouse.

The second service that I attended, the minister talked about a pledge that you could sign out in the lobby. You would agree to tithe 10% of any unexpected income that came your way over the next 30 days. Unexpected Income, oh that’ll be the day ... no point signing that. I couldn’t even afford the $50 needed to sign up for a church luncheon that was coming up in November.

Well, fast forward to the very next service one short week later. I not only had 3 sources of unexpected income create incredible “abundance and prosperity” in my life during that time, but could well afford the $50 luncheon in November! I hadn’t signed up for the pledge but was only too happy to double my contribution to the collection basket as it came my way!

I’d won a thousand dollars playing Bingo on Friday night (I’d been going for years without winning a thing,) my daughter’s father sent her some money to help her out during the slow season (a rare enough occurrence to warrant mentioning here) and heck, I’d even won a couple of bucks on my lottery ticket! How do you win $2 on one of these things, I asked the clerk at the convenience store? I have no idea he replied. He’d never heard of such a thing. Abundance and Prosperity, indeed!

The Good News & The Bad News

Good news first, the director of human resources at my new job has approved my starting at the top pay step for my position! Woo Hoo! That should add up to a halfway decent paycheck come this month. Hopefully a good enough one to pay all our bills. Then we could use J’s paychecks for groceries and spending money.

The area I live in, the Coachella Valley, is very much populated by the “haves and the have nots.” We have Indian Wells, the richest city in America and only 20 miles away is Mecca, the poorest city in America. My friends run the gamet from Nancy, the doctor, who owns a 3 million dollar house to my friend Debi, who is trying to survive on a security guard's salary. But even Debi & I are not really poor. We enjoy great abundance in our lives. No one is hungry, everyone has food in the pantry, we are all lucky enough to be living here in paradise. We can’t always do everything we’d like to do but everyone faces limitations … time or money or health or whatever.