Is Your Source of Income Drying Up?

My story starts with the rehearsal of another man's journey, one that untold millions have read before, the story of Elijah.

Elijah had just pronounced "hard times" (a drought) would cover the land for a period of time.

This drought would affect everyone including himself. However, the Lord in His loving kindness had made a provision for Elijah (and others) during the coming "hard times".

Elijah was instructed to go to a brook called Cherith, a tributary to the Jordan River. He could drink from the brook while God would ordain the ravens to bring him bread & meat 2 times a day, morning & evening. No doubt Elijah was very grateful to know & experience that his physical needs were  being taken care of.

Note that "after a while" (no mention of a time frame), the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.

Because of the "hard times" in the land, Elijah's source of provision dwindled & finally seized. Even the ravens had stopped coming.

It was time for him to move on to God's next source of provision.

Our economy is currently experiencing “hard times” as well. For many reasons, all of us are experiencing the affects of an economic drought. Personally, I have enjoyed a long period of prosperity before the “hard times” hit our area of the country.

I am so grateful for God’s provision that He has shown through my jobs residential construction industry. When the economy took a downfall, my “brook” dried up, thus leaving me without the provisions that I loved & enjoyed for many years.

Since there was no more provision from my “brook”, it was time to move on to God’s next source of
provision.

Now here is where wisdom and insight plays a vital part...In spite of our best laid out plans and intentions, there comes a time in all of our experiences to move on!

The problem I faced was that I was ordered to pay regular child support for my minor children, and I could no longer fulfill my obligations as I had previously for many years.

Admittedly, I got stuck in the mire of lingering too long at the side of a dried up source of income, and did not move on quick enough...thus causing me to get too far behind in my child support payments to get current.

Now, do not misunderstand me here... I was working on some projects in order to produce a steady, predictable income. However, I soon realized that I was serving an industry that predicted my income.

I had no control over my own income at all !

No matter how sincere and intense my efforts were, they just did not pan out the way I had planned and desperately needed. Thus causing me to get further behind.


The one factor that bothered me most was the knowledge of my children doing without because of my inability to make the child support payments on their behalf!

In this day and time when a father gets too far behind in making regular scheduled child support payments, the child support office will file a complaint in court against the father, and the judge will find him in contempt of a court order.

Of course, this is a civil matter only and has no impact on the father's criminal record accept for the fact he is incarcerated sometimes up to a year, and treated worse than those that have committed far worse!


This was exactly what happened to me!
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Now let me ask you this...Is it time for you to move on with your life?

Perhaps you too are experiencing your own personal “brook” drying up.

Perhaps your current source of income has dwindled to nothing.

Let me encourage you to look to your True Source, God.

Could God miraculously cause a flood of “wealth” to replenish your “brook”?

Emphatically, yes! God is God, a God of the impossible. And God of the miraculous!

In Elijah’s case, God moved Elijah to go to a new source of provision. Read I Kings 17:8.

God chose to provide for Elijah through a totally unsuspecting source, a widow & her son.

When your source of provision dries up, what will you do?

Grumble?
Complain?
Become Bitter?
Linger too long at the dried up source's side?

Why not choose to be open to other sources of God’s provision?

Allow God to be your provider. Trust in Him!

Be open to His plan of provision for you.

Move On Quickly!

What's A Nice Guy Like You Doing In A Place Like This?

That question entered my mind as I sat in a holding cell at a county jail in Georgia.  For 3 days, I slept on the bare, cold concrete floor of a 24x18 ft. cinder block cell along with 27 other detainees waiting to be processed and moved into an 80 man cell-pod.

"So this is what happens to fathers who encounter a prolonged period of unemployment and cannot earn enough to pay their court ordered child support!,” I thought to myself.

(The judicial system punishes all fathers who do not /can not pay their child support regardless of their career/job being affected by a failing economy.  Bringing even more shame to their pain & humiliation.)

There are fathers who do not want to support their children as they should because of indifference, neglect and selfishness.

However, there are fathers, like myself, who struggle day in and day out to do the right thing by their own flesh & blood.

The unfortunate trap in the "blindness of justice" is that the well intending fathers are caught, charged with contempt of court, and incarcerated for being unemployed too long without regard to circumstances or the economy.

So what about the dads who want to work; who want to do the right thing; who love their children and truly do all they can to support & provide for their children?

I happen to be one of those fathers who want to work, to find work& support my dear children that Father God gave me!

So as you read further, I ask you for your understanding; not your judgment.

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Allow me to take a peek into the preceding months of my incarceration.

On the heels of the "housing bust", my successful handyman company of 11 years experienced a severe financial setback.  Eventually, I had to close the business.

Unfortunately, I had no control over my income because I serviced a market that predicted my income.

I moved from a rural area to Northeast Atlanta in hopes of starting over & finding another "deep well", but found all of my efforts to be fruitless.

In disbelief, I was faced one day with a life altering crisis.  The choice of shelter or food!

Never in my life had I ever found myself in this situation.  I had always all of my adult life been able to provide for myself & my family.  Yet my efforts continued to fail my many attempts to obtain the support needed to sustain my obligations.

Fortunately, I found a room to rent in exchange for home maintenance and chores in lieu of paying any moneys which was nonexistent in my life at the time.

Very quickly, I reluctantly had to make a core shift in my focus and draw upon other skills I had explored previously. One such skill was that of writing, having earned a degree in writing from Georgia State University.

So I took what knowledge & experience I had acquired from 35 years of repairing & remodeling homes, and I started writing blogs and developing websites.

I focused all of my energies on teaching myself how to be profitable in this new "career" of writing, working up to 16 hr. days to hasten my "paycheck".

I wrote multiple blogs with over 2700 twitter followers, developed 4 websites, and authored 3 how-to books & a training manual for Do-It-Yourselfers with home maintenance issues.

The months rolled on with a lot of hard work, but no promising results from my websites.

"All I need is to sell these books online. I just need one lucky break." I prayed.

Here, another hindrance to meeting my child support obligations.

Stress mounted as the child support letters came in with threats of being put in jail.

Out of desperation, I made a desperate decision to drive my car which had been parked in the garage for months having no reason to drive anywhere, to find employment at a local meeting where some real estate agents were gathering.

I took a huge risk in being stopped by the police due to expired insurance, expired registration and tags; and possibly a  suspended driver’s license, the first penalty induced by the child support agency.

"A man has to do, what a man has to do!"  Therefore, I went on a hopeful mission to find work so I may take some money with me to court (often times, the child support agency will accept a smaller amount if one is unable to pay the full arrearage.)

Sure enough, on the way a policeman discovered my expired tag & stopped me!

He stated there was a bench warrant issued for my arrest due to contempt of court over a child support order, thus I was subsequently arrested and placed in jail for over 4 months.

When my inmates asked why I am there, I’d say, "For being unemployed too long."

All humor aside, they would listen to my story as to what lead me to that place. And even these hardened criminals would scratch their heads and say, "Locking up a man who was out looking for work, and then making sure he did not have a chance to find work. Man, that just doesn't make any sense!"

Many days I would wish I had committed a crime so I could have posted a bond and gotten out much faster. As opposed to sitting there in jail not ever knowing when I was going to be released.

I knew that the inmates looked at me and wondered why I was there. They all saw that I was out of my element.  That I did not belong.

Then again, I asked myself, "What is a nice guy like me, doing in a place like this?"

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A Final Thought:   

Why does the law punish fathers with forced unemployment by incarceration and not mandating a work release program in order to help fathers do what we want to do - do honest work and support our children as we desire? 

Please write your state representative and demand better child support laws within your state to help fathers find work, not punish them with further unemployment through prolonged imprisonment.

A Harsh Look On The Inside

Being in jail can be an eye-opening experience.  During my term of incarceration, I had seen all expressions on men's and women's faces, from extreme hardness to literal fear & trembling.

If you have never been to jail, let me describe in detail what it is like for me.

The whole ordeal is very humiliating!

My arresting officer had me turn around with my hands behind my back...one wrist, click; the other wrist, click.  My officer was mean spirited & somewhat abusive twisting the handcuffs before closing the last cuff thus creating extreme pain.

I asked him to loosen or just untwist the cuff causing the circulation in my hands to be restricted. 

His reply was that he could no nothing about it until we got into the jail.  The pressure was so intense that I had bruises & deep impressions on my wrists lasting for more than a week!

When we arrived at the local county jail, the police car was securely swallowed up behind 15 feet walls of reinforced concrete & razor tipped coiled fencing.  Everywhere I looked there were cameras; on every corner, every wall, every room, every cell.

Once I was inside, my handcuffs were taken off.  The feeling of absolute control had immediately left me as I was photographed, finger printed & processed into the "system".  Although there are certain retained rights as an individual, the right to privacy is quickly stripped away as I was ordered to disrobe, shower, and dress (into the jail jumpsuit / uniform) along with a room full of total strangers.

It was very difficult to cope with the rude & harsh realization of being incarcerated when I was so desperate to maintain my sense of individuality & human dignity.

As I entered the holding cell, I was overcome by the feeling of helplessness.  I felt like a sub-species of the human race...more like a cow that was corralled into a pen before being shipped to the slaughter house. (I was reminded of my experience running a cattle drive for a North Texas cattle rancher years ago. The cattle had to be handled in a certain way in order to maintain "mass control."  As resistance to our control was encountered, direct force had to be administered to get the results we wanted from the herd).

I sensed a haughty attitude from the deputies by the manner in which they looked at, spoke to, and treated me and the other inmates.  "Inmates"...that word took on another meaning to me.  Instead of a lifelong image of "them", "inmates" became personal; my new name..."Inmate Patterson".

The holding cell was overcrowded.  Normally accommodating a smaller group of men, I shared a 24 x 18 ft. cinderblock cell with 27 other inmates.  For three days (72 hrs.), I slept on the cold concrete floor huddled under a bench against the wall so I would not be stepped on.

Once I was assigned to a cell block, aka, a pod, but the conditions were no different.

I was placed in a 72 man bunk dorm with an open bay floor plan. For all practical purposes, I was no better off being in a larger room (approx. 60 x 180 ft.); with open latrines (no privacy wall separating toilets); and no privacy at all.

Everyone smelt, saw, and heard the same everything I did.

At times, the odors from our bodies were unbearable!

When someone yelled, talked out loud, or decided to start ranting & raving from a drug/alcohol induced fit, all of the inmates heard & experienced it totally.  The only way to escape the constant drama was to hope I would I conk out from exhaustion and sleep through it!

There was a time I had prayed to become deaf for just five minutes. That's how bad the constant roar of noise became. Just five minutes....total silence.

Sleeping hours in an open bay jail are short & sporadic.  I was at the mercy of the rest of the inmates in the dorm when it came to getting any reasonable, restful sleep.

Often times, I was woken to the numbing silence after everyone had fallen asleep. Imagine being woken by silence!

The men's temperaments had ranged from extreme violence with racial tensions and fights, to individuals bullying weaker inmates, to inmates going through drug & alcohol detox.

One day, we had four fights break out! One of them was a racial riot where the guards were called in with tazers and mace.

Yes, the harsh reality of coming to jail can be absolutely nerve shattering!

I have seen grown men crying as they fall on top of their bunk mat for the night.  I have seen men sobbing & trembling with fear and uncertainty to their fate.

The truth of it all, this was all seen before they received their sentence from the judge in court.

When a man came back from court with their sentence pronounced, their demeanor was completely different... sobering, solemn, and stark.

Many times, we were subject to the guards' temperament and mood. The rule was "whatever a guard said became a lawful order." Their favorite form of punishment would be to have the entire dorm  punished for the rude and disrespectful comments and conduct of just one inmate. My second week there, we were all punished without any privileges for an entire week... no TV, no mail, no phones, no visitation, and no commissary! 

We all were confined to our bunks for a solid week!

If you have never been to jail, count your blessings. 

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A recent report stated from an article written in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, 1 out of every 13 Georgia State residents has been in jail at one time or another.

My advice: Do everything you can to live a moral, law abiding life & stay out of jail!

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If you are a father paying court ordered child support & you encounter a prolonged period of unemployment...be prepared to go to jail.

Do everything you can to pay something on a regular basis, even if you only have a few bucks!

This may sound ridiculous, but the courts are limited in what they can do if you show a consistently reasonable effort.

I learned this the hard way....during my incarceration!

A word from the wiser!