Bouncing Checks Counts as Rock Bottom for Me

Have you ever bounced a check? Embarrassing, right? Probably most of us who have bounced a check have done it accidentally, not intentionally. A deposit didn't hit at the expected time, or your husband took out more money than you were counting on or vice versa. I have had the unfortunate experience of both of those happening. But many of us have over draft protection, a link to a credit card or a savings account. That seems like the right thing to do, right?

Well, for me, no. You see, when you are addicted to spending, that link becomes another way of purchasing more than you can actually afford. For many years I used the overdraft protection linked to two credit cards to make up the difference between what we had in the bank and what I "needed" to buy. Guess what? I maxed out both of those cards. And they had high limits. Yep, pretty bad. So guess what happened next? I ended up with returned checks for the first time in many years. I didn't realized I had maxed out the credit card until after the returned checks appeared in our account. Very mortifying. I had not experienced that kind of embarrassment in many years.

So no more link to the credit cards or even to a savings account. My husband and I need to communicate about what is coming out of the checking accounts regularly, and I need to stop playing Russian roulette with deposits versus checks. Just one more hard lesson learned for this child of God. I was reading Oswald Chambers My Utmost for His Highest a few nights ago and the entry that day was about how God will not let us get away with even that one area of our lives that we will not surrender to Him. He will keep bringing us back to that one thing again and again until we deal with it. How true! He has been speaking to me for years about my terrible spending habits and I have "repented" many times but no real change followed. I am all about real change now. Rock bottom was bouncing checks two months in a row to my daughter's ballet studio. I felt so awful about it that I wrote them a letter of apology and promised to pay by auto draft from now on, and I included a donation to the studio. I do think it is important to make amends when you can.

My daily earnest prayer is, "God make me honest, transparent, and trustworthy so I can glorify You in EVERY area of my life!!"