Opportunity Cost

Opportunity Cost: a benefit you could have received that is given up by another course of action. (Basically, it's opportunities your choices cost you). 

I've been learning a lot lately about the struggles and effects of poor financial choices. It's embarrassing to admit that I don't know how to spend money well and, as of late, it's been a huge stressor in my life. My earthly and heavenly fathers have been extremely gracious and patient with me, helping me learn how to make better choices. In a recent conversation with my dad I was complaining about paying for one fun thing or another and he said, "Well, that's just going to cost you somewhere else." In other words, "that's an opportunity cost." 

This statement has followed me around ever since our conversation. Every purchase I make, each meal I eat out, any stop I make at the gas pump, my thought is, "This is costing me somewhere else." And that thought sprouted another collection of thoughts: each choice I make personally is like my bank account- it costs me somewhere else - be that mentally, physically, relationally, or more importantly, spiritually. 

The hardest thing about opportunity costs is more often than not, they don't occur immediately. Financial choices I made last Fall and late this Spring are just now catching up to me and I'm having to unwind a year's worth of choices. It's the exact same way with our sin. Sin has the greatest opportunity cost. We may not face consequences in the same moment we make our sinful choices, but it does eventually catch up, whether we see it or not. Scripture illustrates this point: 

“Yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished; He punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generations.”

— Exodus 34:7 (NIV)

It's scary to realize that even at (almost) 25 the choices I make today will affect my children and their children. What a huge motivator! 

Now, clearly our God is a God of forgiveness. Scripture also says that when we seek His forgiveness our sins are no more. He literally forgets them. So what does that mean in regards to spiritual economics? Well, theres a flip side to this whole opportunity cost thing. It's effects are not all negative. In fact, positive and faith-filled choices we make can have a reversing effect. Romans 4:5 says that when we choose to believe God, our faith is credited to us as righteousness. Beth Moore puts it this way: 

“All that time I thought God was counting my sins, and He was counting my faith as righteousness instead.”

— Believing God, p. 96.

This means every time we come to a crossroad of choices, we can either choose to withdraw from our spiritual piggy banks, or we can make a deposit through faith. While I am still working this out with my real life piggy bank, my prayer is for my heart and yours to store up our treasures in heaven through depositing our faith in God. 

McCasland Memories

Certain people in your life impact you from the very moment you meet them. You form an immediate connection which feels as though they have always been apart of you. There a handful of individuals I personally have this divine relationship with. The McCaslands 100% fall into this category.

My connection to the McCasland family goes all the way back to my 12th summer. I would spend a week of my summers with my cousins the Sheppards in Midland, which just so happened to be where Grant McCasland was coaching. It also just so happened that the Sheppards and the McCaslands were best friends. My first impression of Grant and Cece will forever stay with me: so full of life and joy, radiating Christ through and through.

When I transferred to Baylor in the fall of 2011 I knew not a soul in either Waco or on campus. It was a choice I made completely out of faith and in full peace. Little did I know the Lord had a great reward waiting for me on the other side of this decision. Grant had also just transferred his family to Baylor, accepting an assistant coaching position for the men’s basketball team. My cousin Emmy told me about their move when she heard I was transferring and encouraged me to reach out to Cece. I will always remember sitting in my car outside of my first Baylor home talking to Cece on the phone for almost an hour. Even though we really didn’t know each other, it felt as if we had always been friends. With Grant being new in his job and recruitment being the name of the game, Cece was in need of someone to help their family meet daily needs. Oh and not to mention they had four kids under the age of seven, with the youngest barely a year old. Nothing excited me more than an opportunity to live life with this family.

When I graduated from Baylor two years ago, saying goodbye to this dear family was heartbreaking. And in the year to follow there was an emptiness in my life that they had once filled. Last summer though, the Lord exhibited faithfulness to me again by reuniting me with the Macs. I landed my current position in Baylor Admissions and needed a temporary home for my first month in town. Grant and Cece opened their home to me and we belonged to each other once more.

This post has been very difficult for me to write, because yet again I have had to bid my McCasland family adieu. In April, Grant was named the head coach for Arkansas State’s men’s basketball team, a great honor that no one less could deserve. I have seen him and his sweet family work harder than anyone I know to achieve this dream and folks, our God is good.

I often have moments where I step back and realize that our Lord is so very faithful and the McCaslands are literal, physical evidence of His goodness to me. Waco has always felt like my home and I completely attribute that feeling to their presence here. Two of my biggest unknowns have revolved around moving to this town and I know without a doubt not having their family here to lean on, and even live with, would have meant a much more daunting adjustment for my heart. Their home has been a retreat for me; from the hectic days, the hard moments and the lonely ones. The radiance of Christ in each of their wonderful faces has pulled me from darkness, healing some of my hurts and ushering me further into His truth. They welcomed me with open arms into some of their most private places and from day one I knew that I was family. While not by blood, I consider Amaris, Jett, Jersey and Beckett my first set of nieces and nephews; I will always love those babies as such. I am filled to the brim with gratitude over how they allowed me to know them truly, how they trusted me fully and believed in me always.

While goodbyes are never fun or easy (and unfortunately for us, this is round 2), I know Waco’s loss is Arkansas’s gain and I am so proud for my McCasland family. This is such an exciting time! The Lord is using their hearts to usher in His Kingdom and the Jonesboro community will be deeply blessed.

Forever holding onto my McCasland memories.

"Make a Hand, Son"

We lost Grandad a week ago today. One week. Seems like too small a number for how long this week felt.

The initial shock of it all comes on like a fact. "He's gone," shoots straight to the point of pain where it numbs your nerves. You get out of the car just the same as you got in. Your tears hurt, but in an out of body type way. You heard what Dad said but you don't realize what it means. Logistics take place of feelings and it becomes more about picking Brother up from the airport than understanding your father is an orphan.
 

Grandad with my dad and uncle, the infamous Jardy and Yardy. 

Then you pull up to his house. The same house we lost Grandma in 20 years ago. The same house Jardy and Yardy came home to. The same house you picked pecans in, looked at coin collections in and were toted around in a wheelbarrow in. Although there's pain, you know you aren't feeling enough. Your hurt doesn't justify the lost life. "Why don't I feel more?" The same house where numbness seeps in.

Me and Grandma. 

Toting around in the wheelbarrow. 

There is no other word that has crossed my mind this long week more than "weird." Death is weird. Watching your dad lose his dad is weird. Watching your uncle and dad cry together is weird. Constantly counting people to see where Grandad is, is weird. Feeling as though all time has stood still for 4 solid days is weird. You can't put into words for other people what your grieving process is like. You shuffle back and forth between guilt of what you could've done more of and the appreciation of the time you did have.

It's hard to make other people understand how you process loss. For me, it's been in waves. I'll be very calm and there won't be hurt. Then suddenly I feel it rising up within me. Slowly then all at once. One deep breath and tears flow. Calmness settles in again and repeat. 

Meeting Grandad for the first time. 

It's also hard to explain how you can experience fullness of life upon someone's death. Like I said, weird. This week while filled with sorrow, was also filled with a whole lot of love. You do a lot of sitting and waiting in these long weeks. Waiting for the inevitable to catch up to the happened. Waiting for the "I'm sorrys" and the casseroles. Waiting for the neighbor to walk in and the cousins to arrive. Waiting for that 2:00 on Tuesday. And during that waiting you talk. You talk about things you haven't talked about in years. And as strange as it feels to say, the talking is so sweet.

I learned more about my grandad this week than I may have known my whole life. And oh how he loved his boys and his family. A beautiful thing I'm drawn to when people die is their legacy. The one found in their bloodline. My Grandma's legacy has echoed in the back of my mind since I was old enough to understand a person's impact on the world. And in the past week I got to watch Grandad's legacy go from what would be, to what is. I am an extremely proud granddaughter, daughter and niece.

My little, bald, Bird-self with grandad. 

My father and uncle were always taught to take nothing for granted. The world owed them nothing and if they wanted different, better, more, well then they knew to "make a hand, son." Grandad's famous saying was etched into their DNA and both have exemplified that to me, my brother and cousins. They are a living testimony to my Grandad's hard work.

Grandad lived a simple life, but one of character. He was neither fake nor filtered and because of that he loved deeply, yet quietly. You knew where he stood, always. And I am so appreciative of that.  

As my family processes this loss, my prayer has been that we would truly learn to “make a hand, son.”

The marriage of LaRue Sheppard and Roland Powell, my grandma and grandad. Finally together again after 20 years.