Yipes! Is it really almost a week since I last posted! What a naughty blogger I am! :)

So, what's going on here... Aaron and I had a really interesting, somewhat revolutionary discussion on finances during our date night on Thursday. Wanna hear about it? I know finances are one of those things you're not supposed to talk about, but how can we all grow and improve if no one is open to share how their living out this ubi-important area of life? So, if you want to, you can close the window and come back for the next post. But, if you're brave enough to stick around, you just might be a little challenged. And, of course, under the cloak of blog-anonymity, you are more than welcome to challenge me right back! Seriously, I'm not opening this door to toot our own horn and "show you the way"!!! I want to know if you think we've gone off the deep-end or if we've missed a key-point. I know we don't have it all down yet and I look forward to reading and chewing on the comments from this post! Okay, so here we go, folks.

I gotta say, WE'RE TOTALLY BLESSED around here. If money grew on trees, you might think we owned one. But, really it's just God's favor. Really, really. It's kinda miraculous even. When I married Aaron (and he married me!) almost 6 years ago, he was giving away more money than I made that year! Ha! I was (and continue to be) thrilled with his generosity. It is one of his many best traits. Anyhow, we decided that the responsible thing to do was to live on "a typical American income" and give away everything else off the top. It was a lot of fun to live that way, knowing that we were able to do so much good in the world and still have a very comfortable life.

We hung the photos of the Compassion kids we support in our living room, not to show off what we are doing for the world, but because it was a constant reminder to me that their whole houses were quite likely smaller than my living room. And, it isn't about feeling guilty, it's about having a teeny-tiny dose of sobering reality.

Since our wedding day, Aaron's salary has more than doubled. Yep, in six years. And, it was above average to start with. See, I told you--miraculous, no? So, we've met our goal of "giving more to the Kingdom of God than the kingdom of man (i.e., taxes!)" and we've been able to work that for a couple of years. Well, remember several posts ago I was talking about feeling a personal revolution coming on? This is just a facet of that. A couple of months ago, it dawned on me that we kinda just made up that "typical American income" thing without really seeking God too much about it. It just seemed like a good idea. So, I brought it up with Aaron and we started praying about how God really wants us to use our wealth. During that time, I read The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne (Aaron's still reading it). It's by a Christian guy who's trying to get back to the roots and reality of Christianity, to live like Christ and his earliest followers, in a modern context. He had some pretty radical ideas about personal and corporate wealth.

Then, last week, the sermon was about giving and our Life Group talked about it this week too. One of the guys in Life Group sent us all a 26-page article about how the earliest believers used their tithes (and more) to take care of the poor, widows, and orphans rather than on church buildings, staff, and programs. Well, Aaron and I have been growing in compassion and respect for those who are poor, widowed, and orphaned as Jesus has been softening our hearts to them. So, like I said, we spent date night hashing through a couple of months of thoughts and prayers on what to do with our wealth.

Some of the ideas we've recently encountered are VERY radical (e.g.--everyone should follow Jesus' injunction to the Rich Young Ruler and sell all they have to give to the poor; Christians should live on a needs-only basis and that having "superfluities" is akin to stealing from the poor and even tantamount to homocide of those who are dying from poverty) and we're not going quite there (yet?). Here's some things we've decided. We'd like to start "laying up a fund" (I Cor 16:2) out of which we can meet needs as they come along--from a local single mom needing new tires to our orphange needing a new building. We want our giving to be more personal and our money to be ready, whatever the need God directs us to meet. On the lines of being more personal, we want to be more intentional about following Bill Bright's advice to "follow your money." We want to have relationship with those with whom we are sharing our wealth and/or visit (for a piece of time, not just a week) the places our money is going. And, here's the big one... our goal is to adjust our lifestyle (over time) so that we can get to a place where we are able to live on 49% and give away 51% in the spirit of loving our neighbors (locally and globally) as we love ourselves. We're not going to get there overnight. We're not going to get there without sacrifice (even as our income grows!). But, by the grace of God, we're going to get there.

Can I share with you one other dream on this topic? Months ago the Exec Director of Acres of Hope (the humanitarian org facilitating our adoptions in Liberia) shared with me her dream of opening a home for the HIV+ women in Liberia who have been excluded from their communities. My eyes are stinging with tears as they do every time I think of this (which is once or twice a week usually). I want a good bit of our wealth to go toward that dream, and when we talk about following our money... I want to "retire" there. I want to be the "house mom" at that home. If there are widows in need of care in this world, these are the women who top my list of qualifiers.

Well, there you have it, my off-the-top-of-my-head summary of a lot of thoughts! I was going to write about other things tonight, but I think that will keep us all busy for a while. Nigh'-night!