Swan Mom: On Scarcity and Abundance

It was about three years ago, I suppose, that I started wondering where my hearing aid might be. This is a pretty important and rather expensive item, so I looked everywhere I could think of – we scoured the house, I asked about it at the church library, and at my doctors' offices. Finally, after many months, I gave up the search and made an appointment with an audiologist, who sold me another hearing aid, very much like the old one.

About a month later, my husband Wes was cleaning our daughter's car, which she had brought to our house so we could help her sell it, and he found my old hearing aid, in its case, under the front passenger seat.

Not long after this find, I lost my glasses – not my dollar store reading glasses, which I make a habit of losing or breaking every week or two – but my prescription glasses, which would require a visit to an ophthalmologist and a prescription. After another long tedious and disappointing hunt, I called and scheduled an appointment.

The doctor tested my eyes and told me that my prescription had not changed in the three years since my last exam. "So," he said, "your old glasses . . .?"

"I lost them," I admitted, perhaps a little sheepishly.

"Oh. Okay, I'll print this prescription for you."

So I left the office with the prescription in my hand, and a week or so later I had new glasses.

(At this point, the insightful reader might be observing the similarity of these two events, and perhaps can guess the end of this one. And this reader would be correct in conjecturing: About a month later, I found the lost eyeglasses behind some poorly organized books on a bookshelf in my bedroom.)

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When I told my sister Amber about these events, she said, “The Lord is teaching you patience.”

Amber is pretty wise about these things, and I usually agree with her assessments. But this time, her answer didn't quite click for me. (For one thing, if God wants to teach me patience, He's been at it for a while.) I think this was meant to teach me a different lesson – another lesson that I really needed. . . .

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I have always been a tightwad. As a child I picked up pennies and rocks from the ground, as if they would disappear if I didn't collect and store them.

One Halloween night when I was about eight, I took my bag of Trick or Treat goodies upstairs to my closet, where I carefully "counted my blessings." I counted every piece, every Smartie and M&M. I did some calculations and realized that if I ate one piece of candy every day, my stash would last exactly 365 days – just in time for the next Halloween to roll around.

My plan worked put well for a few days – until my three-year-old brother found the stash I had hidden in my closet. I was left with a bag of empty candy wrappers.

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When I was about ten, my parents took us to a doughnut shop and we each got to choose a doughnut. I chose a glazed doughnut, shiny and beautiful. This was a special indulgence in our family, and I intended to savor the experience. Before I took a bite, I had an idea: I remembered that in a week our family would be traveling from our home in California to visit our extended family in Utah. I would save my doughnut to eat in the van during our drive, I saw myself pulling it from my bag and eating it slowly and pretentiously, while my doughnut-deprived siblings watched with envy.

I got home and put the doughnut in a plastic bag so it wouldn't get stale, then quietly slipped it into my small purse, smiling with satisfaction, knowing that my plan would bring me not only the pleasure of having a delicious treat to eat on the journey, but the gratification of seeing the look of sadness on the faces of my less fortunate brother and sisters

A couple of hours into the 12-hour drive, I took the doughnut from its hiding place, to discover that my beautiful glazed doughnut was no longer beautiful. The groans of envy I had been expecting turned out to be cries of disgust when my family saw the furry blue pastry.

You might think that these two experiences, and others, would have taught me something – maybe something like this:

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal . . . (Matthew 6:19)

But I don't learn easily, I guess.

Then I went to college and struggled to pay for tuition and rent and books and food. I was blessed to get through school, and I can tell you there were plenty of tender mercies along the way – but still, money was tight.

Then I married a poor college student, and we became a poor student couple. Then as children came along, we became a poor student family – for eight years.

So scarcity and poverty, with their accompanying scrimping and tight-wadding are set in me. That mentality has long been part of who I am. It's in my blood.

But I'm beginning to wonder if that's not really a good thing.

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Not long after the missing hearing aid and lost glasses incidents, I was reading the New Testament and saw this in Luke:

AND it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret, And saw two ships standing by the lake: but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets. And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon's, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship. Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.

And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net. And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake. And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink. (Luke 5:1 – 7)

The Book of John gives us a similar story:

Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing.
But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus.

Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? They answered him, No.

And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes.

Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord.

And the other disciples came in a little ship; dragging the net with fishes. As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread.
Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught.

Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, and hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken.

Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine. (John 21:1 – 12)

These two stories seem very alike. And they are – but when I read it in the mindset of scarcity and abundance, I noticed a difference.

Jesus doesn't care if the net breaks.

He knows that the nets can be mended, that the sea will never run out of fish. and that even when some were lost with the breaking of the net, there will plenty of fish for everyone. This is Abundance.

The Savior's life was all about abundance. He fed thousands of hungry people with what looked to be a scarcity of food.

He taught a woman he found near a well about water, and its abundant source.

But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. (New Testament | John 4:14)

And He continues to teach this message.

The Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,1

. . . every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2

Therefore, as ye abound in every thing, in faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also. 3

And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work: 4

Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:
Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. 5

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Please know that I am in no way applauding extravagance or recklessness in finances or in any other part (sector) of life. We have been counselled to spend wisely, to live within our means, and to avoid unnecessary debt. I can testify, from my own experience, that this is excellent advice.

But hoarding and miserliness are not the same as frugality. I'm talking about

hat tight, strained feeling that keeps us from opening our purses, our mouths, and our hearts, "to give good gifts." (Matthew 7:11)

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"For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare; yea, I prepared all things, and have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves. Therefore, if any man shall take of the abundance which I have made, and impart not his portion, according to the law of my gospel, unto the poor and the needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment." 6

"And study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you; That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing." 7

"Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver." 8

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I'm realizing, as I write this, that my perceptions of scarcity in my life were, well, a little harsh. Although some people might have said my parents had more kids than money, I look back to my childhood, and I don't think I was deprived of any necessities.

And in college, when there were times when I literally did not have a penny to call my own, the Lord responded, repeatedly, and abundantly, with tender mercies that got me through,

And while Wes was in school and the children started coming, we were poor by almost any standard. But we never went without. Clothes, or food or Christmas Trees, or opportunities to earn a little extra money came along – sometimes at the very moment of greatest need. I look back at that time with wonderful memories of happy times with our young children.

So maybe I was wrong when I wrote that the scarcity mentality was part of who I am. All of a sudden I don't see it that way.

This is what abundance looks like to me: