Bill Collectors

I sometimes wonder if bill collectors think that I am lying about not having the money to pay them. Like, seriously…. I am totally making it up. I have a ton of money in the bank but I love that you call me 5 times a day as well as ALL of the other people calling to collect money. I totally pay my cell phone bill just so that I can converse on the phone with bill collectors ALL DAY LONG. You’re getting an attitude with me? Yeah, that isn’t going to magically produce the money to pay you either. By the way, threatening me by saying it will reflect on my credit score doesn’t scare me anymore. It can join all the others listed in alphabetical order.

Being business owners obviously has its benefits. We were lucky enough to be able to be with our boys after the accident, without fear of being fired from our jobs. There was also so many people who donated to the GoFund Me account. Had they not have done so, we would have lost everything. We wouldn’t have even been able to eat. Literally.

That money in large part was also used to do repairs to the house to make it wheelchair accessible for Jackson. So many promised to do things that they simply couldn’t or didn’t have the time to do. It ended up being a huge undertaking, especially financially.  I  seriously cannot express the amount of gratitude that our family has to those who gave when our family needed it the most. Without it, we wouldn’t have been able to make it.

The downside to being a business owner… you don’t make money when you can’t work. We didn’t work for almost half a year. And sometimes even when you do work, you still don’t make money. It is the nature of being self-employed. I tried to take on a full-time job the first of the year but realized very quickly that I was needed with my family more. There are just too many doctor appointments with Jackson and Alex to allow me to work full-time.

I used to be the type of person to never discuss financial matters with anyone. Now, why wouldn’t I share with those very people who gave and allowed us to stay in the hospital with our babies when so many other parents had to make the choice to leave their children to work?  And seriously, if someone wanted to judge us considering all that we have been through as a family, I wouldn’t want to be friends with them anyway.

I hate having to explain to bill collectors that we simply don’t have the money to pay them. I hate calling my husband to tell him that they turned the water off. Or that a notice is on the front door and if we don’t pay the electric within 24 hours, they are turning that off too. I used to have a great credit score. So being in this position now isn’t fun. We don’t chose to not pay bills. We just simply DON’T have it.

However, with all of that being said, I am also more thankful than I have ever been in my life. We may not be able to pay all of our bills, and we may lose everything yet. But our kids are still here and alive, and at the end of the day, that really and truly is all that matters. Amazing how almost losing the most precious gift God can give you puts things into perspective. And no matter how many collection calls I get, as long as the call isn’t to tell me that my boys have been in an accident, I will take them too.

So, if you are reading this and are one of those who simply can’t make ends meet, cut yourself some slack. Take a moment to remember what you do have to be thankful for.  No matter how broke we have been, our children have never been hungry. God will provide somehow, someway. He always does. Just hand it over to Him.

Love and blessings,

C.C.