debt

I recently joined this site called learnvest.com, which is a money management site founded by this young businesswoman who decided that women need to learn how to handle their finances. Basically what the site does-aside from sending you annoying e-newsletters on how to save toilet paper, etc.- is that it combines all your accounts/debts/savings, so that you can have a true overview of what your "net worth" really is.

Once I joined my site and all my accounts have synced, I was shocked- to say the least. It really caught me off guard how much debt I've accrued from my undergrad and even my (current) grad years. I had no idea, because everything has kind of been on hold for me, since I am still taking my grad courses.

Times like these I wish I was the heroine of Shopgirl (that little novella by Steve Martin). In the book (spoiler alert), the Claire Danes character (I forgot her fictional name) ends up dating and falling in love with an older married (or was he divorced?) man, who ends up inevitably breaking her heart. But the book ends on a happy note as she finds herself in the company of a younger guy (much more awkward, less worldly, and arguably better suited for her). But the real happy note is that the older man ends up feeling guilty for how he has hurt her and ends up paying for her all of her college debt.

I remember reading that book and thinking "wow, can that happen to me?"

Yes, I know... that's awful of me. But a person that is in desperate need, is not a rational person.

Okay, I take that back. I'm not dirt-poor or anything, so I'm going to stop this pity party.

Anyyyyyway, my point was that I have some debt. We all do, in some way or another. The world that we live in has a fully functional give-and-take system. We are all barterers... we do something, so we get something in return. Even the most altruistic of actions has some selfish intent. And I guess that's why it's so hard for people to wrap their heads around the concept of God and Jesus Christ... that a perfect, loving God sent His one and only Son to die for our sins... that Christ paid for our debt fully, a debt that we couldn't possibly pay on our own, and nothing we can say/do can pay him back for this gift of grace.

In this world, that's just bollocks. Oh, but it's true.