A Different Take on Student Loan Forgiveness

Just some thoughts after seeing so many opinions on the student debt relief.  

First, (disclosure) I will benefit from this...why?  Why didn't I work "hard enough" to pay off my student loans.  Being a person who got pregnant in college and choose to carry and raise my daughter and then marry her father keeping our family together I needed financial assitance with the idea that once I graduated I could work as a teacher. My husband working hard at an entry level IT job to provide for us.

Both his mother and my mother passed away over the next few years and my mother had told me she really wanted me to finish my education and I honored that.  I started college in 1996 and it would take me until 2010 to actually finish that degree.  During this time we were led to adopt and instead of the 1 newborn we had planned on we ended up adopting 5 children because of our refusal to break up sibling groups, and our willingness to adopt older chldren.  I put my degree on hold numerous times to care for the kids and their various needs, all while planning to finish with a teaching degree so that I could work when they were in school and be home when they were home.  Raising 7 young kids at the time money was tight and so those loans were a passageway to providing the best opportunities for our crew.  

Fast forward, I attain the degree, I plan to find a teaching job, I start to have some health issues popping up here and there that affect daily life.....I learn I have mutliple autoimmune diseases and am put on medications that deplete my immune system, I have multiple doctors appointments that would need a lot of time off.  I apply for disability but am denied because those years I poured into my kids, following the Lord, did not amount to enough work credits for disability.  So from 2010 till now I have faithfully paid my student loans off my husbands salary and working side jobs, hustles and all that while my health deteriorates.  This is a huge blessing so that we can now take that money and help our kids start off their lives with hopefully little debt.

Sometimes it is painful to read my own church family go off about "those" people when I am often one of "those" people.  It can feel like no matter how hard I try I will not measure up to the "hard work" that made them the wealthy evangelicals they are.  Somehow it can feel like you did it wrong.  But thankfully I have a good knowledge of the word where I see that God sacrificed way more then his taxes to save me and all my church family, He never complained of the cost to Him, He gave us clear direction to not complain when we someone else's debt was forgiven because mine was bigger. I say all this because I am not alone sitting in the chair at church feeling judged by the opinions of others. Before you comment on how hard you worked to pay off your own debt and how no one deserves to have it forgiven.....

Think of the woman who choose life and is raising that child

Think of the person who graduated and then had that cancer diagnosis and couldn't work as hard as you

Think of the wonderful example of a debt being paid and the relief that comes with it to lead others to understand how Jesus paid our debt fully

Think of the nurse who cared for you and your loved ones through an illness who can start to save now

Stop and thank the Lord that you were blessed that you had the ability to pay your loans and ask how you can support someone else who needs some assitance

If you paid off your loans and you have no love, what good it is?