One thing about being in private practice as a mental health professional living in a different country, is that you never know if you will have any clients the next month or even the next week. It makes it very difficult to make a consistent budget, especially when there are months, like in the summer, when many of your clients return to their home countries or go traveling. Luckily, my wife had her job and could be the main bread winner, making my income needed but less urgent. But now that we have kids, this is changing, so I have asked God to provide a steady stream of income that makes up half of our family's budget. And so far, I have to say, I am amazed that he has been faithful. Even in months where I did not expect to make enough, I was able to transfer the same amount to our account. And it does seem that whenever I need more clients, my phone rings. Even after being silent for a month or two.
This has been a very faith building experience and one of the reasons I am so grateful for living overseas. It seems like this is the kind of trust and dependence that God wants from us. Not to "trust in chariots" or storing up food or money, but to have daily reliance that he will provide for what we need. (not our ever growing wants) Living like the birds.
However, I am struggling with this system and I can understand why the Israelites would grumble, even though they had enough food to eat every morning. Even though, the longer God provides for me, the longer His track record builds my trust that He will keep doing it (or should hypothetically), I cannot shake this feeling of powerlessness and instability that I have due to not having the security of a consistent pay check. I know that this is an illusion because at any time one can be fired from their salaried job. But I still have the anxiety and worry, since I am not putting away more, storing away for a rainy day. It is always just enough.
The feeling of powerlessness has been a theme during this journey overseas. And this, unfortunately, seems to add to it. I feel less powerful because I do not have surplus money that I can lean on to solve problems for me. Because, let's face it, money can be used as a buffer in some stressful situations to make them less stressful. If you have a busy week with no time to cook, and you have money, you can just order take out. This is harder on a "manna budget".
I have fantasies of winning the lottery. As if this would solve all of my problems and finally lower my anxiety. I imagine that with this money I would never feel powerless again. In my better moments I realize that this is probably not the case and that I would just trade my current anxieties for new ones, like where to invest all of my money and how to avoid getting kidnapped. So how do I get rid of this anxiety and worry? (Asked the therapist) Or perhaps a better question would be how can I find other ways to gain a sense of power and control in my life other than money?
