Diary of a Year of Favor~ January: The Money Runs Out
Can I tell you what God did for me in the year 2022?
It’s kind of a long story. But… it’s Winter! Isn’t there a comfy chair inside calling your name?
“Let the redeemed of the LORD tell their story-those he redeemed from the hand of the foe ~”
Prologue
On December 31st, 2021, I raced from one restaurant in downtown, to another in Cambridge. A server, working three jobs, I was scheduled to wait tables at the bar & grill all afternoon.
With short notice, my other boss Charlie, asked if I could cover the midnight shift at our tavern. His intonation pleading, he promised:
“It’ll be fu-u-nnnnn!!”
I did not believe Charlie. But, neither did I want to see him made a liar! So I determined that I would have fun- no matter what!
That night, I began my shift with 2 notepads in my server’s book. One was for taking food and drink orders. The other was for writing down answers to a question I would pose to every table:
What were you doing at EXACTLY this time, one year ago?”
All that evening long, I watched eyes glaze and be carried into far-off stares, as minds quitted the dark bar and leapt after memories.
Charlie had spoken well: the night ended up being an uproariously good time. Whatever each person said, I jotted down in my book- and when I went to the next table, I read the whole list through, pointing out each storyteller in turn. Revelers shot each other looks of appreciation, and kindred smiles.
What had we been doing last New Year’s Eve?
Most of us had been holed up somewhere, far from crowds, behaving our best; keeping our potential Covid germs to ourselves. Some of us had been with now ex-boyfriends, or ex-wives. Some had been traveling on business. One girl had run drunk from the house, her friends forming a frantic search party that eventually found her splashing naked in a cold, black lake. One guy had been at a massive party that turned into a superspreader event. (I didn’t censor that story when I repeated it to the others- but even in Cambridge, almost no one outwardly held it against him.) We all understood. Too many of us had ended 2020 tired, depressed and lonely. I certainly had. I waited out the old year, cross-legged on my twin bed, in a dark, quiet apartment. I remember feeling at that midnight stroke, like the whole world together was heaving a sigh of relief. What a dismal year 2020 had been. But we had made it through.
Now, at the opening of 2022, every storyteller in the tavern rose to their feet, while glasses of champagne clinked, and clinked, and clinked. Lips met cheeks, and arms clasped with uncoordinated liberality. Once again, we had made it into another fresh start.
Charlie and I closed the bar, and I dragged my tired body home, glad to find lights still glowing in the great blue house. Kurtis and his friends were awake, playing the first board games of January. I sank into a chair at the game table, and journaled alongside them, til sleepiness prevailed on us all.
PART 1:
JANUARY: The money runs out.
Though my tavern was exquisite in artfulness, deliciousness, personality, and heart, we were struggling. City people still weren’t comfortable dining indoors, and after we shut up our windows and closed the patio, we lost business. When a few of my team went down for the count with Covid, our owner ripped off the bandaid, and shut the whole tavern down for weeks.
Meanwhile, business was suffering at my other jobs as well. I asked my coworkers if I could cover any of their shifts- but no one was getting hours. Events were being canceled left and right. I prayed for work, and applied everywhere. But there was no work. I looked at my bank account and accepted, with horror, that I would not have money to pay February rent.
That week, when I met with the prayer team at my church, someone asked me, “Emily, what can we pray for you?”
and I said,
“I need God to tell me how he is gonna pay my rent!”
Two of those gathered spoke up, gently, encouragingly, without hesitation:
“Why not use the deacon’s fund?”
(*The deacon’s fund is a bank of tithed money, set aside for church members going through a difficult time.)
“No!!” I protested instantly, with a shock.
But they looked back at me with curiosity, and asked, “Why not?’
With kind honesty, the friends held my eyes and said, “The money is there, and people have given it for exactly times like this.”
Embarrassed, and still resistant, yet moved, I promised I would pray about it. I went home, got in the quiet, and asked the Lord, so seriously,
ARE YOU NOT going to solve this in some LESS EMBARRASSING WAY?
But the Lord answered, unswervingly, I am not.
So I wrote the email to my Pastor Damian, saying, “Will you please write a check to pay for my rent?”
And someone did.
Shame chased hard behind relief. I found myself tempted to keep this awkward situation from my roommates- not that that was an option at all. I literally had to tell them, because we always paid rent together, as a unit. And the Lord was swift to remind me, that he wanted them to see.
When I told Haley, she thought for a moment and testified to the both of us: “That’s what the church is for”.
In the same way, when I went to Bible study the next week, everything in me wanted to keep my financial failure a secret. But I knew the feeling of shame taunting me was the enemy’s express design.
So I confessed to them all. I told them I was a beggar in their midst, and a debtor to many among them… whoever had given their alms to the deacon’s fund, had given them to me.
I said it, unable to keep my eyes from dripping, or my voice from quivering- yet with a victorious faith, declaring, undaunted:
“But we are Christians. And we are not afraid of weakness, or of need.”
After I had spoken, Jeremy’s words broke the silence:
“Emily, thank you for telling us— you have given us all a gift.”
“Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”
“Certainly none who rely on you will be humiliated...”
the story continues…