Finding Financial Freedom: A Guest Post

I sorted through all the mail on the table. My eye caught on the one that seemed most important–something from my bank. I opened it, expecting my monthly statement, and instead was appalled at the letter stating my account was overdrawn. 

As it was 1999 and before the ease of mobile banking apps, I had to keep a paper ledger in the back of my checkbook. For three years I had this checking account, kept perfect accounting, and had never once overdrawn my account. 

This had to be a mistake.

Immediately, I went upstairs to where my new husband was hooking up our new television in the bedroom and asked him if he knew why my checking account was overdrawn. He looked at me sheepishly, then glanced to the television, and proceeded to explain he hadn’t deposited all the money from our wedding in time to keep the account from being overdrawn. Then, he explained how he was an expert with money,  had a “business mind,” and should take care of all of our finances moving forward since it seemed to cause me so much stress and anxiety.

I was young–a mere twenty years old, a junior at a Christian College, and a lifelong member of a fundamentalist church. My entire life I was taught how a woman shouldn’t question her husband, how she should never speak ill of her husband, and how men were the head of the household.

So, I agreed.

Twenty years later, I was in the middle of a messy divorce and had no idea what my finances looked like. When I finally ran my credit report, I learned how my husband had opened at least one credit card a year for the entirety of our marriage and utilized 0% or low-interest balance transfers to consistently move our debt around. Consequently, I was left with over twenty mostly maxed-out credit cards.

To say that I felt completely hopeless would be the understatement of the century.

Jump on over to Brianna Barrett's "Releasing to God" series to read the rest!