Financial History

 

When I was six years old, I set up a little lemonade stand in the front of my house. It didn’t take long before neighbours started coming up to the stand and buying lemonade from me. They drank glass after glass and chatted about how they had their own stands once upon a time.I enjoyed this experience of listening, selling and chatting with friends and their parents. I decided to carry on after lunch. Eventually, around four in the heat of a Virginia afternoon; I shut up shop. 

At dinner with my family that night, I received praises from my dad. “What an entrepreneur we have in the family! Well done, Kathy!” 

I just beamed. 

At the other end of the dinner table though, was my mother who was (as the British say) on her chin strap. She had been actually making the lemonade all day and had got nothing else done in her efforts in keeping up with my sales. She was exhausted! 

In addition, I had no thought as to how much the lemons had cost, or the sugar. No wages were even considered for my brother who was detailed with carrying out the jugs of lemonade and taking away the empties for replenishing! 

As a teenager I once had a rare moment of awareness of the support I had received in life and actually said to my mother “how can I ever repay you for all you have done for me?”

With eyebrows betraying her shock that teenagers even said such things, she laughed and graciously replied, “You don’t. You pass it on.” 

Part of my writing aims this year is to see if I have anything worth passing on, and not just to my children. Some people speak of legacy, but this reflection is something slightly different. This review has the purpose of looking at how I am managing my writing right now so that I do have something to share, target audience or no target audience. Am I writing what my faith, in my own personal assessment calls me to write? Is it getting to those for whom it was meant? 

As part of this personal review, I’ve taken up the challenge of writing my personal financial history.

In writing your financial history you list all of the jobs you’ve ever had, however demanding or mundane. The result is supposed to flash up some insights that may help with a realities check regarding how you handle money and the work you now do. For example, you ask yourself: 

Are most of the jobs you have had over the years:

1. About the money and not the work itself?

2. About the work itself and not the money?

3. About the money and the work?

In looking my own job scene, I can see that for me it’s always been about the work and not the money; hence, I have a whole load of books still sitting in the garage. I LOVED the writing of these books, but totally forgot that each book could be enjoyed by someone while contributing to family income. It has been about the work and not the money. 

Don’t get me wrong, some writers write at times for the money, and at times for the sheer joy and some writers only take on an assignment if it is both personally satisfying work and enough money to pay the bills. The best part of this reflection is when you just know that God called you to write what you wrote, money or no money. The idea isn’t to judge ourselves negatively, but to have an awareness of how money factors in what we write. 

The photo above is from a billboard near my house. I decided to take that photo as a possible motto for a plan to support my next steps for work in this upcoming year. The mutual benefit part might start with clearing the garage. 

Father God, as writers we give thanks for all You have called us to write. These days it seems a challenge for some of us to learn how to market or sell what we write. Please, in Your mercy, guide us so that all we have been called to write goes to those for whom it was meant. May that be our legacy, according to Your purpose. Amen.

Kathleen Smith has written three factual books. One of the books sells well and the others are in the garage. She is writing her first novel. She has a Master’s Degree in Social Policy and a Certificate in Theology/ Chaplaincy from Spurgeon’s College.