I have been living, UNjealously, since my late 20s.  Before, envy and resentment twisted my thinking.   Though afraid of failing with this blog, I have important information to share with you. If you are poor, I can show you how to keep yourself and your child from feeling poor, even if you are.

For most of my adult life, I have lived in functional poverty. I define that term as being so poor you could not feed, shelter, and clothe yourself and your family without constant and extreme deprivations. Your clothes, and nearly every thing you own, are from thrift shops; you never ever eat out—ever; you wash and reuse plastic water bottles and carry them so you never buy anything while you are out to drink; you look first at the clearance shelf at the grocery; you treat your kids at the Dollar Store; you cook as healthy as you can, but never prepare expensive food; you often eat saltines as a snack; you rent the smallest apartment you can squeeze everyone into; your family has not been to a movie theater in ten years; you cover cardboard boxes with pillowcases from the thriftstore to make end tables; you don’t make your kids eat them but you eat a lot of sardines and liver.

I will share photos of my 375 foot square apartment as we go along so you can see God in action as things tidy up. I’ve been here three months, exerting genuine effort (in spare moments) to make space for everything so I could work on the real writing. As you can see, it is cluttered and seems totally disorganized. Well, it is and it isn’t.

I can find most things I need, but could not find my completed manuscript of “Unjealous Heart.” You see, today I had determined to take a step of faith and just start taking daily time to write, for God, and trust Him for enough time to do the writing job, and other things in my life. Funny thing, though. I found out my home is nowhere near organized enough to start. Clutter is stressful and causes confusion of the mind, heart, and spirit – and I cannot do creative writing in the midst of clutter.

So, I begin today to get organized so I can do the real writing, which is this blog entitled My Unjealous Life. This blog will be about how I am still, after many years, living in functional poverty, as I defined that yesterday (link). AND I AM JOYOUSLY HAPPY!!!!!! I am so excited about both my part-time jobs and the real writing that I often wake at 4 a.m. and write before going to work. I love my life with God, in the midst of being poor – because I do not feel poor. I feel so very rich, spiritually as well as materially.

I got the idea to write a blog about my personal life as a writer/blogger while I am learning to blog my book Unjealous Heart and creating my writing website Words of Hope and Healing.com. I mean it to be encouraging to you that I can truthfully say I have never had much money my entire adult life and still do not and that I am happy – and you can be, too, regardless of circumstances.
I learned that about 30 years ago when my daughter and I were immersed in single parent poverty. The same principles I learned then I have used for all these 30 years and am using them now, to dig myself out of this situation, and make it better and turn it into a blessing for God and His people.

So, my dear new friend, come along for the ride! It is going to be exciting, I promise, for two reasons:

(1) I have seen our God do miracle after miracle in my one ordinary life for 34 years now. And He is the same yesterday, today, and forever,and
(2) there are no favorites with God. I am nothing special, and what He did for me, He will do for you if you follow Him with all your might.