By Rebecca van Noppen
April, 2022
There is a good way to unravel yarn, and there is my way. Okay, okay. I actually don’t do the unravelling, David does. He is more patient than me, and he actually looks up the correct way to unravel a hank of yarn on Youtube, so he can do it properly.
When I have tackled the process in the past, it hasn’t gone well, especially with those balls of yarn entwined and entangled sitting at the bottom of my knitting bag.
There have been moments in my tangled mess — often due to my own uneducated methods — David has gently taken the yarn out of my hands, and spent the minutes, sometimes hours, to do what I was unable to do. On the verge of taking a scissors to it or tossing it in the garbage, he has come alongside me with patience and perseverance to save me — and the yarn — from certain frustration and “death by entanglement.”
This image of unravelling and detangling comes to mind when I think of the work we do at More Than Enough. As coaches, mortgage agents, tax specialists, and teachers, we walk with people — empowering them — to effectively manage the resources God has given them. We are a part of a Kingdom of God transformational work. It is an unravelling, detangling, and life-changing work that God is doing in all of our lives, both financially and spiritually. I have discovered it is a sacred journey that takes time, patience, wisdom, and perseverance. It takes less time to entangle the yarn and make a mess, than it does to undo it. Financial journeys are the same. I just think of how fast it would take to borrow the $14,000 limit available on my VISA. Then, I shudder at how long it would take to pay it off.
Yarn and Finances
I have discovered that my inability to unravel yarn well, isn’t because I don’t have access to knowledge, resources, or brain power. It has something to do with me — internally. Whether it be an issue of patience, lack of desire to learn the best way forward, or simply because I want to “get on with the project,” I can create further problems down the road.
And this is just knitting we are talking about.
Think about how this analogy applies to finances. We all have access to resources and knowledge to handle our finances well. Yet, the Canadian family remains in trouble with easy access to credit. Even with increased savings for some during the pandemic years, Canadian families continue to struggle to pay down debt. New interest rate increases and inflationary pressures are also adding to the trouble, twisting our financial yarn further into knots.
So how do we untangle this mess?
With patience and perseverance.
With awareness and time.
With applying one simple financial tool, after the other.*
I know, easier said than done. I guess that is why so many of us struggle. It just feels hard — is hard. If you find yourself holding that tangled ball of financial yarn, perhaps it is time to put it down, and hide the scissors. Instead, call a friend, financial advisor, or More Than Enough financial coach to help you unwind it. It takes a good, caring, and safe community to walk out our financial journeys. Find that community, where there are people who know how to untangle the yarn.
*To learn about basic cash flow tools and debt repayment you can access these Financial Fitness Seminar videos led by David and Rebecca van Noppen.