Flip that Tax-return ammendment

Okay, so honestly I should be working on a paper...I'm just going to sneak in a little up-date.

I don't really know what to say really, or how to say it, or how to make it short. I've been really struggling lately, really just wrestling with lots of deep thoughts and ideas...wrestling with God, and the concept of God, and the Bible, and what I even think about the Bible. Yeah, I know. Deep stuff.

So I don't want to get too much into all that right now, because a) I'm supposed to be working on a paper, and b) I'm still sorting things out. Basically I just want to deliver a message that might change the tides of victory...or at least make our bank account swell a little bit.

So I did our tax return this year, like in February. Filled it out, sent it in, got a few thousand back (being poor and having children is pretty awesome in terms of tax returns). Moved on in life. Got a letter from the IRS a month or so later, that we may have been eligible for some additional child-tax credit. Cool, right? Well, I fill out the form that they send us, do the math, do the math again, and I come up with $49. Hmmm...well, it's $49 that we don't have. So I send it back.

A couple months later, they send it back to us. Sara didn't sign it. Ugh. So Sara signs it, we send it back in. Now keep in mind, that all this time, we are being sent through the financial test of our lives. That trivial $49 in the spring is like an oasis during the summer. We're scraping by on pins and needles...constantly getting reminded of the word spoken over us...

...fed by ravens...

I mean, glory to God we're making it...it's just crazy tight. We're learning about trust, and about being smart with our money...but it's crazy tight. $49-would-go-a-long-way kind of crazy tight.

So anyways, fast forward to today. The last week has been kind of stressful because I accidentally sent one of our bills in early...and we had to buy some diapers...and car insurance was due...and Sara wasn't able to give plasma (I know we'll look back on this time and smile at the fact that we are having have blood pumped out of our bodies in order to survive).

So (wow, I'm getting long winded, aren't I? I'm almost done, I do really need to get crack-a-lackin on this paper) I donate plasma this morning ($50 day whoot whoot), run to the ATM, run right to the bank...and find out we've overdrawn. Crap. Good news is we'll have enough money in the account for when the car insurance gets taken next time. Bad news is we're down $19.

Here's the cool thing- I wasn't overly upset about it. I wasn't really that pissed about it (ask Sara about my attitude on such things in the past). A few hours later, I check the mail, it's the IRS again. That's 3 heart attacks this year that the IRS has caused me, because every time I get something in the mail from the IRS, I think that I've done something wrong and I'm either going to jail, or else I owe a crap-ton of money.

So this letter says blah blah blah we've processed your form blah blah blah, and you have a math error blah blah blah your credit is now $1300 instead of $49 blah blah b..wait, what? What???

Wow. You know, I am realizing more and more that I'm not all that smart. Really. And it isn't anything to do with being off by over $1200 on a tax statement. No, I'm realizing that I don't want this burden of objectivity. I don't want this burden of thinking that I can know all the answers. I don't want this burden of denying my subjective experiences....that our human interpretation of evidence is some sort of last word.

I'm still asking questions, I'm still seeking, I'm still knocking. I don't think my faith is going to look the same when this is all over. I don't know what it will look like. But I'm finding out that there is something going on behind the curtains, something pulling strings, and it can't be measured. It can't be debunked. It can't be proven, it can't be disproved. And I intend to find out what it is.