When You Wish Upon A Star...

Wise Bread asked their readers last week, "What if you have a financial fairy godmother or your penny in the well really made your dream come true? What if you could be granted one financial wish? What would it be? How would it affect your life (or someone else's)? We want to know what you would wish for. Would you ask that your financial loan be paid? Is there a job that you really wish you could get? Perhaps you have a mountain of medical bills that you want so badly to disappear. What is your most longed-for financial wish?"


When I first read this question my brain immediately screamed: PAY OFF DEBT!!! My daily thoughts around money always include a sigh because of our debt load and the complementary desire to be free of that heavy chain of debt. Once free of the debt we would be able to save for land and a home, take a trip back east to visit family and have money in the bank for those one time and unexpected expenses. Like getting cavities filled (today) or having to get a transmission fluid leak on the car fixed (soon).


As I continued to think about what life would be like without debt because I was granted one financial wish I realized my wishing was to small! It is a wish after all, so why stop at the beginning of the process? Maybe it's because we're always thinking in small terms - what is the smallest amount I can pay on everything to get by this month? What is the smallest budget I can make to speed up this debt paying process? Maybe it's because we are taught to be unselfish and not take more than we absolutely need? I don't know. But a wish is just a wish, and why should it be limited?

With that thought I decided my wish would be One Million Dollars (after taxes)! Whew, that's a huge wish! With One Million Dollars we would spend it like this:

• $80,000 - pay off debt
• $20,000 -  take a vacation, with family (our treat)
• $600,000 - purchase land and home (or land and build home) locally
• $100,000 - purchase equipment & animals to run a self sustaining farm 
• $100,000 - give to our favorite charities, missionaries and churches
• $100,000 - put in savings 

I was telling my husband about this question and my master plans, and told him my big wish was for a million dollars. His response..."sure, a Million Dollars per Year." A million dollars a year!?! His thought was that if you wish for a million dollars a year for several years then we would have enough so he could retire early and spend his days living off that interest while he worked our little hobby farm. I think a million dollars a year, even in my dreaming, sounds like an awful lot to manage. If having $80,000 is a large weight on the soul it seems having several million dollars would be just as pressing.

Overall this whole topic reminds me of the story in 2 Kings 4: 1-7 where a widow comes to Elisha and is left with deep debts she can't pay. Her sons will be taken as slaves if she doesn't, but all she has is a little oil. Elisha tells her to go to all her neighbors & get empty jars. He warns her, "Don't ask for just a few." And so she gets the jars and the jars are filled with oil that she and her sons are then able to sell to pay off their debt. I've heard it said that her blessing was only as big as her willingness to find lots of jars. Had she found more jars her blessing would have been even greater. And it makes me wonder if even in my prayers I only look for "a few jars," even less than this woman. Why don't I usually wish for, and pray for, more than just enough to get us through the week? Why don't I ask for the big picture? I'm still not sure.

In the end if I had one wish I still think I'd only wish for one million dollars. That is enough for us to reach our dreams. I think in reality if we had more than that it would just be too much. Though even saying that I wonder, "am I dreaming too small?"