Hoarding..

Strange how sometimes lessons learnt years ago can be so deeply etched in the mind...the first church I attended had a lot of 'equipping' classes and in one of them, I can't remember the title now..we learnt about changing behaviors...the class was taught by a couple - pastors married to each other- and they used a real life example..and the handle was 'ABCD'...

Activating incident : both return from work- the husband grabs the newspapers and sits on the couch and reads it for 30 minutes..wife starts doing housework immediately...

Belief system : wife believes that if a husband does not help out with housework immediately, he does not care about her..

Consequential feeling : she feels angry and upset..

Decisive action: wife becomes very snappy and they start fighting for no particular reason..

After talking things through, the wife found out that her husband needs the down time but is more than happy to help her once he's done that...and she becomes much more relaxed and peace is restored in the household..

Sounds rather easy to understand and remember right? 

So recently I realized that I have been shopping slightly excessively (as if the world was coming to an end..) and wondered what was wrong..

Something about moving to a different country and not being working and not having my own income terrifies me...

I thought I had already addressed this issue and had settled it my heart to trust God to provide and not to look to man (even thought the man is my husband..) for my financial security, it still caused me to shed more than a few tears..

the underlying belief was : "my husband won't be happy to provide or me.."

The resulting feeling was fear and horror..(for someone whose love language is gifts...materialistic stuff can be seem too important..)

And the consequential action was: "let me now buy all the things I need and do all the beauty treatments I can with my own money so that I would not have to rely or ask my husband when I move after.."

So the logical solution?

Change the underlying belief..

I did tell my husband about my insecurities and he has made it crystal clear that it's OUR money even though if he's the one working (outside the home) and that all of our money is a blessing from God and we are stewards of His blessings... And that he trusts me to be wise and thoughtful in spending... 

New belief: "My husband will take care of me and provide for all that we need as we trust and submit to God in all things."

Hmm.