Let’s just be completely honest for a second: Have you ever sat at your kitchen table, looked at the bills, looked at your bank account, and just thought, “Okay, God… the math is literally not mathing right now”?
If your hand is raised, come sit by me. You are so not alone.
Right now, my husband and I are in a season that feels less like a smooth highway and more like an uphill hike in flip-flops. We both work. We don’t spend money on stupid things we don’t need. We live strictly paycheck to paycheck, doing everything “right” by the book, and yet we are still physically not making enough money to cover our bills, let alone do anything extra.
Oh, and did I mention we have two young kids? And absolutely no extra childcare help? And no daycares in town?
Cue the nervous laughter.
To add a little more flavor to this circus, we are currently down to one vehicle. So the logistical dance goes like this: when my husband takes the car to work, the kids and I are stuck at home without a ride. When I take the car to grab a shift—strictly before my 3:00 PM hard cutoff (during school hours, summer is different) because, you know, tiny humans need their mama—he is the one stranded at home.
It’s isolating. It’s exhausting. And if I’m being totally transparent, it’s a breeding ground for some really heavy, dark thoughts.
The Questions We Ask in the Dark
When you are trapped in the house, watching the clock, and wondering how a single income-producing (I am part-time and work whenever possible) car can stretch across two lives, the enemy loves to start whispering.
Am I not trusting enough in God? Am I not tithing enough? What am I doing wrong? Why are we going through this?
It is so easy to twist financial hardship into a spiritual failure. We start thinking God is a vending machine—that if we just put in enough faith or enough money, a shiny new lifestyle will drop into the slot. But that’s just not how He works. Tight seasons are not proof of God’s anger; sometimes, they are just proof that we live in a broken, expensive world.
Jesus didn’t mince words about this. He didn’t promise that following Him meant a guaranteed surplus in our checking accounts. He said:
“I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” — John 16:33 (NLT)
Notice He didn’t say we might have trials. He said we will. Having one car and a tight budget doesn’t mean your faith is small. It just means you’re in the middle of a trial.
The Two Coins and the One Car
If you’re stressing that you aren’t doing “enough” to earn God’s favor or fix your situation, I want you to remember the story of the widow’s offering.
Jesus was watching the crowds drop giant amounts of money into the temple collection box. Then a poor widow walked up and dropped in two tiny, practically worthless coins.
Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has given more than all the others who are making contributions. For they gave a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she has to live on.” — Mark 12:43-44 (NLT)
God didn’t care about the dollar amount. He cared about the heart.
Right now, you might not have a massive financial tithe to throw into a bucket. But you are tithing your peace, your energy, your sanity, and your time. You are sacrificing your comfort to make sure your kids are loved, safe, and fed with zero outside help. You are stretching one vehicle between two working adults just to keep the lights on. That is an offering. God sees the weight of those two tiny coins you are dropping into the box every single day.
Manna for Today (Not Next Week)
So, why the one car? Why the tight budget? Why are we stuck at home feeling stranded?
I don’t always know the “why,” but I do know that seasons of absolute dependency force us to look at God for our daily bread—not our weekly or monthly surplus. When the Israelites were in the desert, God didn’t give them a month’s worth of groceries all at once. He gave them manna for one single day. If they tried to save it for tomorrow, it went bad.
He was teaching them to trust Him for the next 24 hours.
When you’re sharing one car, you are forced to live in the immediate present. You have to figure out today’s schedule, today’s drop-offs, and today’s grocery run. It forces a radical, sometimes uncomfortable reliance on God for the literal next step.
“That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear… Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are?” — Matthew 6:25, 26 (NLT)
The “Stuck in the Driveway” Survival Guide: How to Fight Back
If you find yourself sitting on the couch, staring at an empty driveway while your spouse is at work, or watching the clock tick down to 3:00 PM with a heavy chest, what do you actually do with that time? How do you keep your mind from spinning out?
Over the weeks of navigating this, I’ve had to develop a survival guide for my own soul. Because let’s be real—the pressure doesn’t just come from the bills. Sometimes, the loudest pressure comes from inside our own heads.
If you are stuck in the waiting today, here is how we fight back, give ourselves grace, and survive the low seasons:
1. Keep Doing What You’re Doing (Praise in the Pits)
First of all, keep praying. Keep rebuking those ugly, anxious thoughts the second they try to crawl into your brain. And most importantly, keep praising Him in the lows.
Praising God when your bank account is full is easy. Praising God when you’re sharing one car and skipping meals to pay the electric bill? That is a weapon. When you choose to say, “God, I don’t see the way out, but I still think You are good,” you are actively shaking the kingdom of darkness. Keep singing in the kitchen. Keep praying over those babies.
2. Take the Pressure Off Your “Hustle”
I am so guilty of this. When things get tight financially, my immediate instinct is to hustle harder. I start putting massive, suffocating pressure on myself to create content, to write, to build something, to fix our lives through sheer willpower.
But sometimes, when we try to force creativity out of a place of panic, we just end up completely overwhelmed. If you find yourself staring at a blank screen or a flashing cursor feeling totally paralyzed, give yourself permission to step back. God doesn’t need you to burn yourself out to rescue your family. Sometimes, the most faithful thing you can do is put the laptop away and just be.
3. Give Yourself Permission to “Miss Out”
It is deeply frustrating when you want to go places, be involved in your community, or take your kids to events, but you literally cannot because you don’t have a set of wheels. Pushing through the best you can is admirable, but you don’t have to feel guilty for the times you just can’t make it happen.
If you have to stay home, turn it into an intentional sanctuary instead of a prison. Build the fort with the kids. Have the living room dance party. Let the FOMO (fear of missing out) go, and protect your peace within your four walls.
4. Gently Remind Yourself: “I am Human”
Write this on a sticky note and put it on your bathroom mirror. You are a human being, not a machine. You cannot be a full-time mama with zero childcare, a working spouse, a content creator, a budget master, and a logistics coordinator without hitting a wall sometimes.
God knows exactly how we are made. He doesn’t expect you to be a superhero.
For he knows how weak we are; he remembers we are only dust. — Psalm 103:14 (NLT)
He remembers you are human. It’s time to start remembering it yourself.
Standing on the Driveway
If you are stuck at home today because your spouse has the car, or if you’re staring at a clock waiting for your turn to drive to a shift, take a deep breath. You are not failing. You are navigating an incredibly heavy, complicated season with grace, grit, and a lot of prayer.
The math might not math right now, but God’s faithfulness doesn’t rely on our calculators. He’s got you in the waiting, He’s got you in the sharing, and He’s got you in the driveway.
You are not alone.
Nahomi Allen Writes 
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