Artists

April 08 Reflections

I’ve never been so glad to see a winter come to an end as I have this one. My three week bout with pneumonia was scarcely past when Bruce fell on the ice and broke his right hip. Of course, now we face the scariest thing of all…the April 15th deadline. It reminds me of that old western tune, “Deep in the Hurt of Taxes”. And Bruce thought his hip was painful. Talk about adding insult to serious injury! (Okay, maybe it was “Deep in the Heart of Texas”; but it’s my article.)

I rarely think about tax time without recalling my old court reporting days in St. Louis. As freelance court reporters, we were not paid by the state, but by the attorneys who hired us. In retrospect, it was a horrible way to make a living. You never knew when or if you would get a paycheck or whether it would be fifty dollars or five thousand. We were waiting for the attorneys to pay our invoices and they were waiting to win some big case. Therefore, we were constantly behind on our bills, owing two months of rent, three months of electric bills, four months on the car, etc. We were always waiting for that big check that would catch us up. On top of that, we were basically self-employed, so we were expected to “estimate” and pay taxes quarterly. (I always felt like if I have to guess how much I’ll make, then I should leave the name blank and they can guess who sent it in.)

At the court reporting firm where I worked, there were a couple of people who had gotten themselves in a pickle with the tax man. Because there was never enough money to pay the bills and set aside a third for taxes, it was easy to say, “I’ll pay these bills now, and then when the big check comes in I’ll catch up the taxes.” They each had young children at home, and one of them was a divorced mother of two, so there always seemed to be more expenses than they counted on. So paycheck after paycheck the taxes were pushed aside until next time. But next time never seemed to come.

Before long with interest and penalties mounting everyday, they owed thousands upon thousands of dollars with no hope of repayment any time soon. The gentleman who I’ll call “Tom” dodged the tax man as long as he could, but his nerves were shot, his family relationships were strained, and he eventually had a heart attack from the stress. The young woman jumped every time the telephone rang, dreaded meeting the mailman and found it difficult to focus on anything but the problem. Depression ultimately set in and hampered her ability to cope with life, much less her children. She finally made an appointment with the regional office to set up a payment plan; but the balance barely budged because new interest and penalties were continually assessed on the remaining balance. She was trying, but she felt hopeless that her efforts would ever make much difference and helpless to do anything but try. She struggled for years trying to do it on her own.

Then one day “Patsy” met a truly wonderful man. They dated for a while and soon discovered that they loved each other. He asked her to marry him and she felt it was only right to tell him of her financial fiasco. It didn’t seem to phase him. He married her anyway. Not one time did he ever scold or belittle her. He could have said, “What were you thinking? How stupid can you be?” But he never pointed out her failure. He just took that horrendous tax bill and eventually paid off every dime. What’s more, he never mentioned it again. It was as though it never happened. She no longer had to fear the telephone or the postman. Her stress melted away in the comfort of his love and she was happy for the first time in many years.

Sound familiar? In that one act of love and kindness, “Patsy’s” husband mirrored the love of Jesus. She hadn’t earned it. She didn’t deserve it, but he loved her.

The Lord says that while we were yet sinners He loved us. We had done nothing to merit His grace. We owed a debt of sin that we could never pay; but He took it upon Himself and paid the price in full. And now because of His grace we can rest in Him, secure in His love knowing that our sins are as far from us as the east is from the west and they will be remembered against us no more.

Now, if that thought won’t make you have a happy April, nothing will.

Janice Crow

P.S. I love you, Bruce.