God’s Love Is Our Greatest Asset
How One Couple Weathered a Financial Crisis
By Donna Ice

When I met my future husband Larry, we quickly became good friends. Within months we began dating and talking seriously about marriage. Our social backgrounds and financial frames of reference were very different, however, and these differences led to conflict early and often.

I had been raised as the youngest daughter of immigrant parents who had worked at several jobs simultaneously just to feed and house five children. Larry had grown up as the oldest child of a typical middle-class family. His father had financed his college education; I had worked at three jobs to pay for mine.

I grew up in a mobile home in a neighborhood where people didn’t know each other’s names; Larry’s childhood had been spent in a suburban two-story house located in a neighborhood where families spent their weekends grilling steaks, washing cars, and keeping an eye on each other’s kids. Still, we both shared a very strong work ethic and a similar value system, and we wanted the same things in life. We began our new life together confident of success.

Not long after we purchased our first home, Larry was laid off from his job. We were unprepared for this event—our emergency savings had been spent on our down payment. With the resilience inherent in “twenty-somethings,” however, we merrily lived on, confident that Larry would soon receive an offer for an even better job. Weeks later, the offer arrived, and we packed our belongings to move to Phoenix.

We arrived in Phoenix in the early 1990s, just after the fallout from the savings-and-loan debacle. A few months later, we purchased a repossessed home and instantly acquired a significant amount of equity in it. We vowed to live on only Larry’s income and continue to save for the future.

The American Dream. By this time, we had begun attending weekly Mass at our neighborhood parish. We didn’t know anyone there, and we didn’t really make any attempt to meet people or get involved in any way, but it felt good to finally settle down. We planned on being part of the community for a long time, so we made a financial pledge to our parish’s fundraising drive with the idea that we were building a “home” for our future children and ourselves. We were living a comfortable, suburban, middle-class life—the kind of life to which my parents had always aspired for themselves and for their children when they came to America. I was now fulfilling their dream.

While I was enjoying this newly found “affluence,” I failed to notice that my marriage was starting to falter. At work, Larry was surrounded by the negative gloom-and-doom talk that usually precedes a layoff. He wasn’t worried, however, because he had recently received a very favorable performance evaluation. He was certain he would weather this wave of layoffs.

Imagine our shock when just eighteen months after arriving in Phoenix, Larry was informed that he was being laid off because of inadequate job performance. Those weren’t the exact words, but that was the implication. Larry was escorted from his workplace by security guards and not allowed to finish the workday or even say goodbye to his colleagues. He had been stripped of his dignity.

A Forced Separation. While Larry and I had never been extravagant spenders, we knew that we needed a large infusion of cash in order to realize our dreams of buying a larger home and having children. Larry had been offered a temporary but lucrative position in the Midwest, but neither he nor I wanted to return there and start over again, especially since the job was in a small town that offered few other prospects.

After many long nights of deliberation and weeks spent unsuccessfully applying for local jobs, we made a difficult decision: Larry would accept the offer, while I would remain in Phoenix, continuing to live in our house and working for the same company that had just laid him off. My job was secure, and we enjoyed living in Phoenix. We believed that our chances for long-term employment were better here because of the presence of so many high-technology firms. I would help him find a job here while he was two thousand miles away earning money for us.

Larry began his job in the Midwest for a stint that would eventually last six months. We scheduled visits at six-week intervals. During that time, I attended Mass less often and started filling my lonely nights and weekends by socializing with single women at work. I began to visualize myself not as a married woman but as a single woman involved in a long-distance relationship. I even contemplated an extramarital affair with a married coworker.

Larry was earning a significant salary, but we saved very little, spending lavishly on plane tickets, long-distance phone calls, and gifts for each other in an attempt to compensate for the distance and emptiness in our relationship. This did little to strengthen our marriage, however. By the time Larry returned to Phoenix to start a permanent position, we had become almost strangers to each other. We struggled to get reacquainted, but within the year we had separated, and now we were talking seriously about divorce.


A Reconciliation. About a month after our separation, each of us reached a turning point in our divorce discussions. Mine came at a healing Mass a week before Christmas. I sat in the pew, praying fervently for healing and forgiveness, tears streaming down my face and my hands shaking uncontrollably. I don’t know how I managed to walk to the front of the church to receive the healing blessing; I was in a haze of tears and pain.
After I was anointed by the holy oil on my hands and forehead, I returned to my seat. Gradually a feeling of gentleness and peace settled on me, and I no longer felt that soul-wrenching agony. I left church that night with a new resolve to heal myself and accept whatever decision my husband made regarding our marriage.

About the same time, my husband decided to attend a diocesan weekend retreat for divorced or separated Cath-olics. I don’t know exactly what happened, but when he came home early Saturday morning instead of Sunday evening, he had changed his mind about filing for divorce. He told me that he wanted to work things out, and we started visiting a marriage counselor individually and as a couple. We also went to Mass together again.

By spring we had solidified our resolve to make our marriage work, and I moved back into our home again. We reestablished financial guidelines, defining new goals and roles for each other. By summer we had begun to replenish our depleted savings with the goal of starting a family and making ourselves financially strong enough so that I could become a stay-at-home parent with our future children.

Time, Talent, Treasure. The brief period of lavish spending during Larry’s temporary relocation was a minor blip on our financial radar. We rediscovered fiscal conservatism. We bought used cars and drove them until they couldn’t run anymore. We deposited the maximum allowable in our companies’ 401(k) retirement funds and personal IRA accounts. We dined out only once a week (sometimes even sharing one meal) instead of four or five times. Financial contributions to the church were paid like any other bill that was due, twice monthly. We believed that abandoning our pledge simply wasn’t an option.

The emotional healing from this turbulent time in our marriage was complete the day we brought our five-month-old daughter to church for baptism. While her immersion in the baptismal pool cleansed her of original sin, my husband and I felt cleansed as well of guilt, anger, deceit, and pain. With newly rediscovered strength, we became active members of our parish family, eager to learn more about our faith and share the gifts we had been given with others.

In addition to our “treasure,” we have donated our time working with teens in the parish and serving on the parish council. I have contributed my “talents” by singing with the music ministry, and my husband has become Webmaster for a local ministry. In addition to our regular financial contributions, we have also contributed household goods, used clothing, and food to support the St. Vincent de Paul Society. As stewards of our God-given gifts, we have shared much and gained so much more, learning to love and care for strangers and friends alike.

Nine years have passed since my husband’s damaging job loss. Five months ago, Larry was again laid off from his job. This time, however, we are confident that our marriage will overcome this hurdle. Despite having fulfilled our dream of building a new, larger home last year as well as having a second child, we know that we will not suffer as we did the last time he lost a job. We are strengthened by a de
eper love for one another based on mutual understanding and trust.
Now we have stronger financial resources, including retirement savings, bolstered by good advice from family members and magazine articles as well as a large amount of home equity. We also have the possibility of even better employment, because both of us earned our graduate degrees a few years ago.

Our Greatest Asset. Most importantly, however, we are blessed with the love and support of a church community that serves as our extended family. These family members have repeatedly offered us meals, money, and child care during this challenging time. This loving community has helped us to realize that each component of stewardship—time, talent, and treasure—is equally important. We are all caretakers of God’s assets, and when we share them with others, we will be “repaid” when we are in need.

Recently the local newspaper an-nounced that our zip code contained more millionaires than any other zip code in Arizona. As members of the St. James Parish Family, I know that my family and I are wealthier than any of those millionaire households. Our portfolio lists God’s love as our greatest asset.

Donna Ice lives in Arizona with her husband and two children.