Altar
Call – Opelika-Auburn News
Walter
Albritton
Feb.
10, 2002
Nine times a day I receive an e-mail
message offering me the perfect solution to getting out of debt. Evidently
there are many people who are willing to help other people break the bondage of
debt. And I know several people who need relief from their burdensome
indebtedness.
Money problems often lead couples to the
divorce court. Staying married is not easy and it is made even more difficult
when a couple lacks harmony is the use of money. Perhaps only adultery is more
destructive to marital bliss than the failure of a husband or a wife to handle
money wisely.
Many couples race headlong into marriage
without counting the cost. My wife and I did. We figured love was all we
needed. But we soon learned that love wouldn’t buy groceries or pay the rent.
Fortunately we met the test and our marriage survived those difficult days when
money was scarce and debt was wrapping its clammy hands around us.
I remember well the first loan we ever
made soon after we were married. We borrowed $200 from a bank in Auburn, while
I was still a student. We paid it back at six per cent interest over the next
12 months. Seems like too little to have borrowed, but 50 years ago $200 was a
lot of money.
We paid off that first bank loan a month
early. My good friend and mentor, Bro. Si Mathison, advised me to always repay
the bank early. He was right. Banking people pay attention to the way people
pay off their loans.
Nowadays who needs a loan? Banking institutions have lured us into the
deadly debt pit created by credit cards. No need to worry about having money.
Just use plastic money. Then when the credit card bills start piling up, you
have the honor of paying your bill at the rate of 18 per cent interest. And to
show you how kind they are, the credit card companies will be happy for you to
pay only $11 a month for the next 30 years while that interest keeps adding up.
I love what the author Larry Burkett
suggests that we do with our credit cards. He says, “Turn your oven on about
400 degrees, put your credit cards inside, and come back in about three hours.”
Credit cards are, of course, not all
bad, provided you use only one or two and pay off the balance at the end of
each month. Otherwise sooner or later you will not own your credit cards; they
will own you.
Now that we are in the fourth quarter of
our lives, we are thankful that over the years our debts that not destroy our
relationship. Slowly we learned how to live within our income and to avoid the
death grip of the debt monster.
But the truth is, none of us can ever
get completely out of debt. As long as we live we will always be in debt. Sure, you may be fortunate enough to not owe
anybody any money. But there are many other kinds of debt.
My parents lived almost a hundred years.
But that was not long enough for me to repay them for all they had done for me.
I remain in debt to them in a hundred ways.
I have many friends
whose love and understanding I have not always deserved and for which I am
unable to repay them. Until I die I will remain in their debt for their
priceless gift of affirmation and encouragement that saved me from myself a
thousand times.
Perhaps a story from Pope John the 23rd’s life
will illustrate what I mean. After John became the pope, his own mother was
among the first visitors permitted to have an audience with him. She was a
simple woman who had lived most of her life with very little of this world’s goods.
As she and the members of her group were ushered inside to
greet the new pope, she observed that each person knelt to kiss the pope’s
ring. When her turn came, she too knelt and kissed her son’s ring. Then she
held out her hand and said, “Now, Son, you kiss this ring. For if it was not
for this ring, you would not be wearing that ring!”
I am sure the pope realized at that moment his great
indebtedness to his mother, and to many others who had made a difference in his
life. I don’t know but I have an idea that the pope ignored the usual protocol
and lovingly embraced his mother in his arms.
I do know that there are times now when I feel the urge to
gather my loved ones, and my friends, in my arms and thank them for all that
they have done for me. I am greatly in debt to their kindness. I owe so many so
much.