We made a lot of money; but, we were never able to make the kind of money many of our friends made. It was hard for my spouse and I to appreciate what we had because we were always comparing our life and finances with those of our friends. They were able to buy things and go places we couldn’t afford. Even though we were able to go to some very nice places and buy some really nice things, we couldn’t enjoy them because they weren’t as good as many of our friend’s.

I’m not sure when it happened; but, we started lying and cheating to not only make our finances look better, but to actually get things we didn’t earn. We started out small and gradually told bigger lies and involved ourselves in more complicated schemes. Our whole motivation for being dishonest was simply to try to impress our friends. I am sure some of our friends knew we weren’t being totally honest; but, we convinced ourselves that we had successfully pulled it off.

One big area where we went wrong was living on credit. We were spending money we didn’t have and owed money we couldn’t repay. We didn’t mean to get into debt; but, there were times when our friends were going places and doing things we couldn’t afford. When they invited us to join them, we couldn’t say no; we felt compelled to pretend we had the money to cover the expenses. We had talked a big talk and it became time for us to show them we had what we said we had.

The more we juggled our finances and stretched our credit, the more we put ourselves in jeopardy. On the one hand, we were allowing ourselves to be pushed into things we couldn’t afford; and, on the other hand, we couldn’t find enough ways to support our lifestyle. We were actually quite miserable even during times when we were trying to have a great time. It was obvious to us that we were going to run out of options soon; but, we couldn’t seem to face up to the facts.

The pressure built up inside us; we argued and fought over more and more issues; we blamed each other for the mess we were in. We found it hard to keep our stories straight with our friends. The emptiness, fears, and frustrations grew to the place where it was almost impossible to sleep at night. We were tired all the time; and couldn’t find time to rest or relax. We stopped answering the phone because there were to many creditors calling trying to collect their money.

We had borrowed from people who thought we were their friends. People who assumed we were honest and responsible in our financial procedures were finding out how dishonest and foolish we really were. Our reputation was falling apart and our friends were pulling away from us. We were sinking into a pit and we had no way of saving ourselves. All the lies and cheating were catching up with us and we couldn’t come up with one more scheme to save the day.

It would be too depressing to tell you all the things we had to go through in order to get our life straightened out. I am sure you can imagine what kind of legal and social prices we had to pay before we were clear with the government and society. But, God had a way for us to start over and head in a rewarding and constructive way of life. In some ways, it was a blessing to finally get out of all the pressure of trying to be someone we weren’t.

It is our hope that our life and our story will save you from ever getting to the place we went. But, if you are already there, we are here to tell you that there is a way out of it all. God has a way of bringing you back to a way of life that doesn’t allow the social pressures from the people around you to push you into places you shouldn’t go. We and our new friends are praying for you that you will allow the principles in HELP eMagazine to help you get on the right path.