Vacation Planning

In a break between Sunday Masses, I am at home, watching the World Cup and getting finances squared away, in anticipation of an upcoming vacation. Our friends have invited us to the Outer Banks to share their beach house for a week. This arrangement is very fortunate for us--it hasn't been a great tax paying year for the Leslies, and so we were originally planning to forgo a vacation away from home this year.

The hardest part of pre-vacation finances is writing that check for our giving. This has always been hard. It was hard the summers we went to the Bahamas and a cruise in the Caribbean, and it was difficult the springs we went to Italy and Disney World. Interestingly, it has not gotten easier with more modest vacations. There are two months when the giving checks hurt more than others: pre-Christmas and pre-vacation.

But getting that money out of my hands is of paramount importance to me, especially during the seasons when it seems to increase my stomach acid to write the checks. I've learned that if I linger over it too long, it might not get done. One year, prior to Disney World, I hadn't done it when I intended. I was worried about having enough money to play with at Disney World, to be honest.  Because we left for Disney World the next morning, I knew what I had to do. I drove a check to Nativity that night and managed to catch someone before the place was locked for the night.

It wasn't that I was so darn holy. It was that I knew it would bother me while I was on vacation.  This is not because I felt guilty so much as it was a failure to follow a giving plan.  Because I am now convinced that all "my" money isn't mine at all, I have a plan to give just a fraction of it away.  All "my" money is really God's, of course, and therefore I need to deliver that rather small portion of giving money to a place where it's rightful owner can use it for His good.

So, with intestinal fortitude from God and a cramp in my writing hand, I'm getting that check taken care of before I leave. 

He asks for so very little of our treasure. It seems even more disrespectful to withhold right before vacation. That would be biting the mouth that feeds me, I think.