Advent: Hope

Advent season has officially begun. I've polished the little brass candlesticks, but I've yet to go to the store for my purple, pink and white candles, which I will do this afternoon.  These symbols are important enough to spend the money on having them in the house.  The candles are lit in order, the first is a purple candle, that represents Hope.  The second candle is also a purple candle representing Love.  The third candle is the pink candle that represents Joy, and the fourth candle is a purple candle representing Peace.  The final, white candle is the one we light on Christmas day, the candle of Christ.  We've celebrated Advent for years with Bible readings and family time, but last year I added the candles--because nothing encourages prayer like giving your kids candles and lighters.

This week, we will light the candle of Hope.  With this, we will not only acknowledge the most important hope of Christ's arrival, but the personal hope that the interviews this week will be fruitful.  We hope, even when fear threatens to overwhelm us.  We hope even when we have no money to pay the bills.  We cling to hope even when we want to cry and feel sorry for ourselves.  We hope even when our bald tires slide across the ice.  We hope always.  Without hope we would fall apart.  So this year, when the first candle is lit, we will say our prayers of hope and we will continue to be thankful for the gifts we have.

What a Whirlwind

I'm exhausted.  On Friday, I found out I was chosen after a phone interview to advance to round two for an interview in Oregon.  It was in our hometown, and if I were to get the job, it would put us in a good position to be closer to help my mother-in-law and my own mom.  Plus, there is something so comforting about going back to the beginning, especially when life has been chaotic for so long. We scrambled to pull together enough money for me to even travel to Oregon, and to find a car that had better gas mileage and tires.  While our car is a great car, we have put off buying tires so long that we aren't very safe anymore.  I took my princess daughter with me on this trip, which turned out to be an excellent idea.  She was so helpful and fun to have along.

The interview itself was a new experience for me.  It was a group interview with 7 other candidates for the position.  Watching the interactions of the interview panel with the other candidates made me suspect they had already picked the one they were most interested in.  I'm not a loud, forceful person in group situations, so I was at an additional disadvantage.  That's life though, isn't it?  There will always be someone who is better spoken and who appears more capable.

I am thankful that I had the opportunity to go to this interview, not because it was anything life changing or wonderful.  If anything, it was just because it proved that I do present my skills in such a way that at least draws interests from employers.  As discussed before, I'm at an additional disadvantage due to my injury.  I made it to this interview because I first went through the phone interview.  

Since it is Thanksgiving week, I'll let you know that even though the poor school is closed Thursday and Friday, I am still required to fulfill my obligation to the state in taking classes and applying for jobs.  Poor people aren't allowed the time to spend with their families without worry over obligations to the state.  Holidays are only for the wealthy, and those of us who choose to be unemployable because of injuries must still meet the quota of job applications and hours spent learning how to get hired as an able-bodied person.  Being poor means you don't get to have the dignity of enjoying your family.  It means you have to worry twice as much about how to fulfill your obligation when the means to do so aren't available.

I am humbled

When I started this little blog it was an exercise in organizing my thoughts with the hopes of maybe opening  eyes. I was filled with anger, hurt, humiliation and pain that my friends, my relatives--people I love, were blindly posting on social media hateful opinions about how despicable poor people are.  They--my friends, my family--were posting that they wanted to see people who were already humiliated and broken, further humiliated and further broken.  Broken to the point that they disappeared and didn't exist.  And with that, I wished I didn't exist.  I wished that I could go on pretending to still be middle class.  I wished with all my heart that my friends and family wouldn't hate me because I decided feeding my children was more important than maintaining an image.  My hope was that I would feel better, and that my experience would help someone else feel better about struggling to survive.  And perhaps by putting the clean, black words onto the screen, I could cleanse myself of all of the anxiety and fear that comes with watching my little world burn out into a mess of ashes.

I've been on the receiving end of some wonderful support, but also some painful criticism and hurtful actions.  Let me tell you something, its surprising to be criticized for making sure your children are safe and fed.  It hurts to be told you are wrong to hope that things will get better.  It hurts to be told that you are the reason society is failing. It hurts to be attacked on why you haven't sold all of your belongings and become homeless over taking state charity.

For all these hateful things directed at me, I've read words of support and love. I've talked to friends and families who have been in this position, or close to it, or only by the grace of God have been able to avoid it.  I read words of encouragement and prayers.  These things alone make this load less of a burden for us.  I never, ever expected the outpouring of kindness and care that I've received in the past couple of days.  For this I am humbled and reminded of how sweet and precious each and every person in my life--even the anonymous ones--are.  Thank you.

Hope

Yesterday was a rainy day here in Southern Idaho. It was that gentle, cold, fall rain that doesn't do much of anything but fall. I don't know if it was the rain, or the state of my life that lent a grayness to my day as I headed off to fulfill my obligation with the state. Offspring's "Get a Job" started to blare on the radio as I pulled out of the driveway. I listened and sang along with the entire song. I owned the CD when owning CDs was a thing cool people did. The lyrics added to my grayness.

I greeted my friend in Arabic when I entered the classroom. She greeted me with a joyous smile in return. We were learning about conflict resolution in the workplace. I was grouped with my friend, another refugee, and a woman my age who was once a teacher. Would I use these techniques? Maybe, I wasn't that interested in the topic, choosing it only because of the longer class time, which fulfills my obligation to the state. My friend and the other woman struggled to understand, and I realized as I went to pull out my phone to help translate, that I've forgotten it.

After class, I took care of paperwork, and then once in my car, I sat for a minute. I could use some real hope. I turned the radio to the Christian rock station.  Just anything hopeful. The first song I heard is about how you can stop making bad decisions, and how you can go back to God. I don't think I ever really left God. I don't like this song, its not hopeful. I flipped through the channels and end up back on the same radio station. A song about how God was changing the singer through the little inconveniences in life blared. I turned the radio off.  I needed hope, not drivel.

I drove through the school zone and watch as mothers and fathers drove erratically--one woman cut me off as I turned right, in the process she barely missed running over three children crossing the street. She turned a u-turn directly in front of me and oncoming traffic, narrowly missing the same three children she tried to run over in the first crosswalk. Maybe everything is hopeless. Between this disregard for the lives and safety of children, and the disregard for life everywhere, it really does seem hopeless.

When I walked into the house, my husband greeted me, "hey, you forgot your phone. I texted you but then I saw your phone on the bed, so you didn't get it."  "Yeah, I know. I realized I forgot it once I was there."  "Anyway," he continued, "I have an interview tomorrow." With that, a small sliver of hope took hold. I looked at the sofa and saw a package. I took it to my room and found the packing list to determine where it came from. A friend sent something for the kids' for Christmas. I reminded myself that just the night before I opened a box delivered from Amazon, with no sender's name, but with cheesy potatoes and other wonderful things for our family. Who was I to feel hopeless in this world?

Today, the phone rings fifteen minutes before the scheduled time of my husband's interview. Surprisingly, its for me. I interviewed two days ago for a job in Oregon. They were calling to invite me to the second round of interviews to take place on Monday. I'm excited. My husband is too. He cloisters himself into the girls' room at the little sewing table/desk. The kids and I commit ourselves to absolute silence. Nearly an hour later he emerges, smiling. It sounds like he will be on the call-back list for the second round.  He'll have to drive to Washington to interview in person.

Hope. I needed hope. Now I clutch it closely as we try to figure out how to meet not just our basic needs, but the added necessities of traveling. But we do have that hope to hold on to.

Day Three

The princess is still a walking cesspool of illness.  Last night, she rallied and I believed that she would be ok.  Then in the middle of the night, she was up sick.  Now is the time I count my blessings.  There have been many times when the husband has been gone on a work trip and the children have passed around a tummy bug, or a fever, or cold virus.  But the joy of my life as a mother, at times like these, is that I do not have three children under the age of 5 passing illness to one another anymore.  Everyone knows how to be sick without making a huge mess anymore.  Those days when the icky laundry would pile up and I would follow the kids around with towels and buckets are past.  Now, some cleaning, plus a lot of Lysol, and we can usually keep a virus to a minimum.

My plan today is to venture out to the store. My husband does all of these errands for me, especially since I've been hurt.  I've been trying to visualize my best plan of attack.  In this, I realize that I must take the oldest with me to the store.  She won't be happy as we will have to buy those items that 12-year-old girls are so embarrassed to admit they need.  This is not an adventure quest she wants to go on.  I find it kind of funny...

But beyond our current week's issues, I have something that weighs on my mind.  Its a middle-class, lack-of-information problem that I probably have thought in the past, too.  I don't hear these ideas from people who are poor, who have been poor for a while, or who have risen out of poverty.  I hear these things from people who are working middle class.  Its the idea that there is someone else who will take care of this problem.  In my case, its the problem of healthcare.

A person who was on medical leave recently returned to work at the poor school.  She was aghast that I haven't had surgery for my torn meniscus.  She wanted to know why I hadn't.  Why hadn't I gotten medicaid?  Why don't I have Obamacare (seriously people, its ACA, Affordable Care Act, regardless of what you think of it). Why hadn't I gone to the county?  Why hasn't my church paid for it?  Have I thought of looking into finding a church that would? Why haven't I gone ahead and gotten the care and then made payments?  A lot of times, the hospital and doctors just write off these things.  She couldn't believe that I would put up with this injury for so long!  She had to think of some way to fix it.

And that is all good and well.  If she has a better idea, that is honest, I would be willing to consider it.  I don't qualify for medicaid.  The county gives you a loan and they put a lien against your house (our house won't sell for a price high enough to cover knee surgery).  I haven't thought about asking my church to pay for this... and I certainly won't be changing churches based on what they can give me.  All doctor's offices require either insurance or payments at time of services, to take services without paying is stealing. Since I have friends who work in the medical field, I would no more take toilet paper from their children than to steal the services of a doctor. When the hospital agrees to write something off, you still have to pay taxes on that, and then you have a bigger problem than just being poor.  You have the problem of a huge tax burden that you have no way to pay.  So I'd rather endure this injury than to not have integrity.

Eight Hours, Now What?

The news that my husband was going to be gone for a week to do some exploration on a couple of mining projects was very exciting.  Sure, he'd miss our son's confirmation at church, and I would be on my own for a whole week, but how wonderful that he had this opportunity.  An opportunity that speaks volumes about their company taking off and starting to become what they have worked so hard for.  We knew that if this was successful, it would definitely be worth the sacrifices.

I cataloged my challenges in this chapter of adventure and how I would be able to manage them.  Crutches, but I was happy to assure my husband that I'm at a lower level of pain then I had been in quite a long while.  Not healed, but not so badly affected that I yell about aliens like a crazed escapee of Area 51. I've been hobbling around the house rather effectively lately, so if I'm careful, I'll be ok.

The broken washer.  We dug out quarters hidden from the last time the washer went out.  That will get a midweek washing under control.  The kids might think its fun to go to the laundromat.  Or at least we'll fake that its fun.

The kids' schoolwork, no problem there, although the more I thought about it, we could play hooky, maybe take the dogs out somewhere?  The plans were coming together nicely.

Poor school.  Well, there has to be a gray cloud somewhere, right?  The girls are capable of being left alone, but I might just drag the boy along with me to make sure there is no fighting on a school day.  He might like an outing. This challenge could be easily dealt with.

My princess daughter woke up early.  She took a long shower and laid on the sofa.  She then threw up.  No problem, it was probably a different manifestation of the tummy bug most of us had last week.  She'd stay home from church and then everything would be ok.  We've got this.

Two church services, and more walking about than normal.  I was tired, but that was ok.  My eyes started to tear up and feel hot.  Perhaps I was very tired.  The other kids and I took care of the daily chores.  I had forgotten how many little chores there were.  My husband has taken care of the little chores since I was hurt, and we split them before.  I felt colder than normal, so I found my favorite "old man" shirt to wear over my teeshirt.  I was still cold, so I added a coat.  Something might not be quite as ok as before.

The princess looked flushed.  I took her temperature, and then for fun took everyone else's.  She had a fever.  I gave her an acetaminophen.  I had a fever.  I took some too.  The other kids were fine.  She said her legs hurt.  I offered that it was because she had laid on the sofa all day.

My joints were starting to ache.  The major joints that are affected by my use of crutches, were hurting even more.  I made dinner early, not sure if I'd manage later.  At this point, my husband had been gone only 8 hours of a 6-7 day trip.

Only a few more tasks for the day.  Drop a child at church to work.  Pick her up.  My head aching.  My joints hurting.  My knee unexpectedly gave out completely.  ALIENS!  By the 12th hour of solo parenting I'm in agony.  My injured leg now contracting painfully as the rest of my body gives in to the illness.

This is not starting out as a glorious week of adventure.  Unless the adventure involves taking a left turn to a special circle of hell.

I plan a war on the illness via medication.  I'm not going to fail at this.  I warn the kids about the extra upcoming challenges to this special adventure week.  I've come to the conclusion, this could be worse, but I'd very much rather it not be.

More Adventures

I looked at the boy's hand-me-down shoes and realized they were completely ripped out.  I knew he was outgrowing them, but I didn't realize that they were so damaged or so small.  They were a full size and an half too small.  He never complains, only occasionally asks if we can look for shoes at the thrift store for him.  So on Quarter Day we go to the thrift store and look.  But boys are so hard on their clothes and shoes that finding clothing and shoes for him is difficult.  If we can patch, hem, fix buttons, polish or otherwise rehabilitate an item we do, often choosing items that are passed over by others.  He's not picky, and being the youngest and only boy, he's pretty nonchalant about wearing clothes passed down from his sisters.  Looking at the shoes, I realize I cannot let him go on like this.  We head to the girls' closet and find a pair of black boots that fit him.  He's thrilled to get a nice looking pair of shoes.  I promise him we will go through the girls' shoes more closely and see what they have that he can wear.  The girls protest this proclamation, but they forget that their brother only had 1 pair of shoes, where they've been blessed with many hand-me-downs.

I spend the morning researching the error code my washing machine flashes.  One description of the issues of this model starts with, "common problems with this otherwise tragically flawed washer:..."  Hoping (always hoping), that the code is something simple, something that doesn't require expensive parts or even worse, expensive electronic parts.  We've replaced so many parts on the washer already, but now, we just... can't.  One hundred seventy-five dollars for a new control board is out of the question.  It used to be a big annoyance to have something go wrong with the washer or dryer, but now, its so prohibitive that its impossible.  

I cry.  The kids are out walking the dogs, so I break down in the privacy of my temporary solitude.  I consider the 2-3 loads of clothing we wash daily.  

I  pull myself together.  I come up with a plan.  I'll make it an adventure.  This will be a learning experience.  We'll get through this challenge too, and we'll become better people for it.  Because if I don't pull myself together, or come up with a plan, or make it an adventure, or learn from it, or get through this challenge or become better... I'll become bitter and angry.  I'll teach my kids to wallow in self-pity and to blame the world for their problems.  I can't let that happen.  There is so much more at stake than a washing machine that doesn't spin or a child with no shoes.

Two-sided days

Do you know what a two-sided day is?  For me, its one where I experience hope, happiness, joy and anger, irritation and disgust.  

The day started out well, I felt good about the interview, and about the position.  I would really like to be chosen for this job.  I left feeling worthwhile, and capable.  Not like someone who isn't worthy of consideration.  I had hope.  The children were working somewhat on task when I got home, the husband was finishing putting the yard to bed for the winter.  I enjoyed a couple of hours at home helping the kids with their schoolwork.  Teaching them, working with them is a joy, even when the boy falls out of his chair while learning his multiplication tables.

The other side of the day took place in poor school.  There are some truly beautiful people in the room.  People who are struggling, people who are hopeful.  Out of the 13 people in the class today, there were more than a couple of bigots.  Now, I understand why the state sent me, a once middle-class, white woman to the class.  I get it.  I've been at home with my children for quite a few years, working as a consultant, or as an unpaid volunteer, and homeschooling.  I haven't done a full-time gig in a long time.  The state determined that I fit the category of needing help to get work.  I may not like being forced to attend this program, but I do see why I have to be there.  The state follows protocol, and as we've discussed earlier, a temporary disability isn't recognized in the protocol.  Therefore, I am required to attend a program contracted by the state to force me to find work.  

I attend the mandatory class.  I dress in my interview outfit (bonus, I was already wearing it).  This gets me extra points so I can go to the company's Closet of Happiness for Poor People (not its real name), and choose a single item that food stamps won't buy.  I was told there was toilet paper, there wasn't.  

As an aside, food stamps should buy toilet paper, or you should donate it to food banks and charities.  It is the most necessary hygiene item.  Soap is nice, but showering carefully and daily in warm water can offset a lot of personal odor.  There are a lot of people who follow natural body care practices, and its fine.  You would never notice.  But you notice when a person doesn't use toilet paper.  So a word of advice, when you donate those pickled herring that are about to expire in your pantry, donate toilet paper too.  If you are a Costco member, donate a big pack of the individually wrapped rolls.  People need toilet paper along with the cream of celery soup (why did I buy that?).

Back to my class.  I sat alongside a couple from Iraq.  They struggle with English.  Remember though, the description of English as being a language that pulls other languages into dark alleys, beats them up, and goes through their pockets for loose grammar.  People who aren't born speaking English are learning a violent language.  Our language regularly riots and takes hostages.  Knowing this, having studied, and taught Latin and English Grammar to my children, I have great respect for anyone who learns this language.  

The husband of this couple from Iraq was a doctor before coming here.  He'd like any job in the medical field, but his education and experience as a doctor isn't recognized here.  He and his wife have come as refugees and are going through the refugee program that our local college sponsors.  It doesn't take much reading to figure out that the situation in Iraq.  His medical experience is probably what ensured he and his wife could come to the US.   They struggle to introduce themselves and to answer the questions.  The husband has a stronger grasp on English.  I admire them.  I know learning English isn't easy, and I can't imagine learning it from a non-germanic or non-romantic language.  

Here's where the day made me so angry.  As the wife struggles to introduce herself, other adult students groan, roll their eyes, and mutter about how people should just speak English if they are going to live here.  I'm embarrassed.  I look at these other people and wonder why they think that a woman who wants to get hired at Walmart is a threat.  I wonder how they can treat a man who was once a doctor as subhuman.  Its disgraceful.  Everyone in the room is there because they have asked the state for help in taking care of their families.  How can any one of them think they are better than the person next to them.  

How, and why, have we managed to pit poor people against poor people so effectively?  Here is my prediction:  my Iraqi tablemates will get on their feet much more quickly than 2/3 of the people sitting in that room yesterday.  They will not waste time finding excuses and having unrealistic expectations, instead they will work hard to build a good life.  I am humbled.

Blessings

We are blessed.  Even in these struggles we are blessed.  I have a train of thinking that I follow when I feel like this knee is causing too much pain, and I am overwhelmed with fear for the future. It goes like this:

"I can't believe that this is getting worse.  What am I going to do?  What is the purpose behind this?  How can I fix this?"

Paul frequently wrote of a thorn in his side, and sometimes I want to think this knee and this poverty are figurative thorns in my side.  But really, Paul's suffering was from being beaten for speaking the Word of God, and for teaching about Christ.  I've done nothing like that.  In fact, I'm quite a selfish person, who lives in relative comfort when compared to others.  I've rarely been taken to task for my faith in God, and its always been reasonably civil.  Sure, I've been called names, lost friends, and had my feelings hurt, but never beaten or imprisoned.

And really, I can't compare my struggle with Paul.  But we do have Christians imprisoned around the world in terrible conditions, which are much more like Paul."

At this point, I remember Saeed Abedini, the pastor from Boise, Idaho who is imprisoned in one of Iran's worst prisons because he was building orphanages and because he is a Christian.  He is beaten and abused regularly.  His wife has shared reports that she receives from family who can visit him, and its heartbreaking.  To think of how overwhelming it is for this family.

So I shall not carry-on and complain.  I have my husband close.  I have my beautiful children.  If my "thorn" is an injury that will someday be healed and a financial struggle that will someday resolve, I will count myself among the most blessed.

Affairs of the Heart... er... Knee

I really struggle with my knee.  Its getting worse, and while I consider myself to be fairly reasonable and even a bit stoic, I find myself unable to steel myself against the pain as well as I used to.  Perhaps its the longevity that is breaking me more often.  Morning, night and all hours between, it is a constant companion.  At first, I thought that I was just being weak and unable to manage a common injury.

I took to heart those horrible words about how poor people, and people on welfare, just pretend they are hurt, pretend they are disabled, pretend they can't work. Since I am one of those people now, this must mean I pretend that I'm in pain in order to get more from the government and give less back.  I did my best to hide the pain, to reject the crutches, to ignore the implications.  And yet, none of that has helped.  None of it actually helps me walk, or takes the pain away.  I wish I was just pretending that this injury was stealing my quality of life from me.  Then I would be able to stop the sham, and regain the fun and joy in being a wife, in homeschooling my children, regain the excitement and ability to fish, camp, hike and cook, regain the ability to do.  With regaining the ability to do, I would regain more than the ability to work.  I haven't just lost work with this, I've lost the ability to enjoy my life.

Idaho doesn't recognize temporary disability, and a treatable injury is a temporary disability.  Because of this, I cannot ask for any sort of accommodations.  When I awkwardly clomp on my crutches through the doors of an office to interview, I am obligated to tell them I am not disabled.  I cannot ask for any accommodations in the job, even when its obvious that I will need them.  This means I have no protections against discrimination, which leaves me in an unfortunate loop.  I cannot get a job which would allow me the financial ability to treat my knee.  If I continue with my knee untreated, I cannot get a job.  If given the option of hiring between two people with similar skills, employers will choose the fully able-bodied person, or they will choose the person who they know has legal protection.  They will not choose someone who might miss work or looks like they might need to take time off for medical reasons.

And with that said, I will spend this weekend preparing for an interview for a position I want, in a office I would enjoy working in.  I will be well-researched, ready and excited.  I will squelch the fears, and the knowledge that I am at a disadvantage, and I will be ready.  Maybe this will be the panel of interviewers that look past my knee injury and see that I am a capable candidate regardless of my crutches.

Poverty, Seasoned with Extra Embarrassment

I see the hateful messages on social media about how the poor clean out the stores on the first of every month, spending the tax dollars of hard working Americans on things like candy, soda and potato chips.  I see the outrage that a decent person has to wade through nasty, disgusting, welfare breeders with their whining and filthy sprogs around them, just to get to the ground beef.  Everyone sees those opinions.  They aren't kept quiet by any means.  The comments are as common as flies on a ranch in September.

So we try not to fit the welfare stereotype.  We plan a quick trip for milk and essentials to the "used food" store (a grocery outlet where much of the food is of questionable origin and /or expiration date).  We run out of milk before the first but the shame of having to run the SNAP card on that day along with all the other welfare people stops us from remedying it.  We wait, and on the evening of the second, my husband goes.  He asks if I know if we have our credit.  I tell him I assume we do, its supposed to post on the 1st.  Forty-five minutes later he calls me.

He uses that professional hushed tone of a man who is doing business in a grocery store.  There is disappointment and embarrassment in his voice, and I can feel the heat rising in my face even though I'm not there with him.  He says the card won't go through.  He asks if I know for certain if there is funding.  We both wonder if I failed a task on the paperwork hell quest.  I look for the letter.  It gives me no information.  I rip my wallet apart looking for the information card.  It has a phone number that only is manned on business days during business hours.  I take over the computer and frantically work at setting up an online account.  I tell him what I'm doing.  He tells me the decline code.  I find nothing.  Sixteen minutes later, I finally am verified to access the account and find that we've been funded.  He's about ready to put the food back when he sees the manager.  She tells him it was the state server that had crashed.

Last week, he spent time in the offices of a large corporation working on negotiations for a project.  He and his partner met with an investor for another project.  Moments before he went to the store, I had looked over his shoulder as he wrote a proposal.  And yet, here he was laid low by a computer glitch that made him feel like he was less than worthy of the milk and few groceries he needed.

Thirty Days of Gratitude

Every year for a number of years I've participated in posting a gratitude a day for the month of November on social media.  Sometimes, its very easy.  I can find 30 things to be grateful for in less than a minute.  Sometimes, it seems trite and silly.  Sometimes, I feel like I'm riding the bandwagon, even though I know I've practiced this longer than Facebook has been around.  But sometimes?  Its hard.  Its hard to find the things to be grateful for when life is difficult, and my horizon is blurred by so much.

This year, I will be thankful and show gratitude.  Facing financial difficulties in the United States is still a sight better than living well in a third world country.  I don't live in a culture where I must build my own hut out of cow manure (Masai).  For this alone, I am thankful.  My small American tract house is large compared to many places, even compared to other first world cultures and American cities.  We house only two generations in this home.  Not only do we have the luxury of indoor plumbing, we have two bathrooms.  Water comes into our house on demand.  Not just water, but clean water, free of parasites and germs.  I have a device that provides enough hot water to shower 5 people with hot water left over.  I don't have to walk 3-4 miles a day to get water (est. 1,000,000,000 people do).  I don't have to worry about my children being assaulted by soldiers or gangs when they use water (South Sudan).

Compared to other Americans, our life is a struggle.  Compared to other humans?  We've got it easy.

Answer a fool...

Do not answer a fool according to his folly, Or you will also be like him. Proverbs 26:4

Whoops.

I was angry.  Life is unfair.  The anxiety is overwhelming.  I want people to realize that we are all human beings who should be treated with respect.  I want to make people care about others-- or stop caring so much about that small fraction of government money used to provide welfare to help the poor. I want people to think bigger, to realize that there are so many factors involved when you are broken and need help. I want people to be upset about large corporate subsidies and bank bailouts instead (they take up more of the federal budget than food stamps, but its easier to hate me and my children than it is to hate Chase Bank and General Motors). I want too much.  

I answer the FaceBook post quickly.  I wonder why I'm friends with this person who hates the poor so much.  Who hates me so much for being poor.  Who hates my husband for trying to build a business.  Who hates my children for being born to us...  I'm hurt, and in this pain I reply with anger.  I am foolish.

Its quick.  I slap my forehead and realize what I've done as soon as I post the words.  I wish I could take them back.  I am no better than he is.  I am no better than the person who hates the poor, as I answered back to someone only slightly less poor.  There was no right answer.  There was no logical conclusion for them.  Its easier to rage against my family than it is to hate a faceless bank who doesn't care about people. In his mind, I am the national debt.  I am the reason our country is failing.  My answer to a baited question convicts me in a court of people who are one or two steps away from being just like us.  Maybe they are fortunate enough to live near people who can help them.  Maybe they have resources that we don't have.  Maybe they don't know what its like to have a scattered or minimal support system.  Maybe they do.  Maybe I need to think more and respond out of humility and grace.

To whom do I ask forgiveness?  My husband and children for allowing them to be dragged through the mud because I answered a foolish question?

I still worry about how we are perceived.  I never wanted to be hated, but it was just so much more important to make sure my children has access to medical care and food.  

It could have been a lesson in humility, but instead I am humiliated in my foolishness.  This is hard.