Paycheckaholic

My name is Clint, and I'm addicted to paychecks...

Immediately upon turning 15 I got a job.  I was a bagger at Kroger.  Tips were good.  My favorite time of year to be a bagger was Christmas as people were so nice and cheery then.  I loved to ask the older ladies, buying clearly more food then they could eat in 2 months, about the incoming family they were so obviously getting ready to cook for.  There was also the time where my friend and fellow bagger Kenny, a 50 something divorced dad previously addicted to drugs with problems I really couldn't understand at that age but probably acted like I could, found an unopened 24 pack of beer at the bottom of some forgetful or hurried shopper's cart he was returning from the lot.  You would've thought it was christmas that night!  He was so excited.  Being older and understanding a little more about life now, I probably would've been excited too.  That was a lot of free beer!

From there I worked at my church's recreational center, which was a total blast, until I graduated highschool and went on to college.  As soon as I got to college I delivered pizza for Papa for a semester until it honestly got too dangerous.  I guess I picked up a knack for delivery as I then went on to have a work study job until I graduated college 4 years later delivering all sizes of "reports" all over campus to different offices (yes email was just getting started back then).  I drove a massive cargo van with no a/c and got to know a lot of people.  I loved it.  OH, and every college summer I worked at a kids camp which kept the paycheck streak alive!

Let me get to the point.  I graduated college and got a job as an area director for a kids ministry in FL.  After a year of that I did some oddball construction jobs here and there to make ends meet, then worked as a maitenance man at a church, then was hired as a junior high minister at the same church where I cleaned the toilets.  After all that my wife and I moved to Dallas and both worked part time jobs while we raised support to go work with a church plant in Paris, France.  I worked at a law firm until it was time to go overseas at which point we transitioned into a life of working abroad for about a year.  We then came back to the states and I picked up full time employment back at the same law firm until I felt like I needed to get a big boy job in the sales world.  This is when we moved to Houston and I pounded the pavement for 3 1/2 years as a sales guy in the medical world. At one point I even had two jobs, one as a salesman and then a part-time gig as a pastor of a small church plant which ended a couple years ago.  So finally at the end of April 2011 I quit my sales job.  

OH! the point...here you go.  That's 18 or so solid years collecting a paycheck, paying uncle sam, clocking in and clocking out, feeding social security, and so on and so on.  It's now been 5 months since I collected a paycheck.  The longest stretch since I joined the workforce at 15 years old.  Now, yes, I asked for these 5 months.  I fully recognize I'm not in the place of millions of presently or previously unemployed who would love to have just one of the jobs I've had.  When it comes to employment, I've been fortunate...very fortunate.  I also realize that 18 years in the workforce is a drop in the bucket compared to countless who have worked decades upon decades.

But as far as I'm concerned I've had a "working problem", and i've been clean now for 5 months.  I've had withdrawals along the way.  Every muscle in my back has found a way to seize up or give out as I've "coped" with not getting my financial fix every 2 weeks.  I've had ulcers in my mouth.  I've been incredibly moody and had moments where it's best if I was just alone.  I've panicked.  Cried.  Sweat.  Lost sleep.  Lost weight.  A few times along the way I've lost hope.  Goodbye savings.  Goodbye security as I've known it...the green kind.

But you know what....Hello Life!  Hello to a new phase.  Greetings to days of knowing Whose I really am.  Money is important, I get that.  It will come i again.  I enjoy working hard, I really do.  I've worked my butt off in a steamy garage all summer with everything to show for it except cash...and that's fine with me.  What has been made clear to me is that I am to jump, and trust, and enjoy the ride no matter how fun, difficult, crazy, exciting, or dull it may be.