Today is the end of the worst drought of our lives. Unemployment drought, that is. 689 days. Count em! Mull over them! Just imagine, you’re next. I don’t really want you to face that but after what has happened to us, my husband….I will never be so naive again! It literally could happen to anyone!
The day he came home in the middle of the work day and told me that his company was outsourcing him for a month-to-month IT company, I had NO IDEA what hell lay ahead. July 7th 2016 was and still is one of the hardest days of my life.
Dreams burned to the ground, security out the window and self-confidence smashed like a head-on collision with a train. I cannot lie, we are not the same people. So much has happened. So much hardness, so much sad stuff.
All of it ordained by God.
I feel like I’m in a sort of recovery mode now. Bouncing back is going to take time. We visited a great new church yesterday in Bozeman and the pastor just happened to be preaching on patience. His sermon was laced with advice that specifically addressed where I am this very moment in life.
Anxious to move forward.
One of his points spoke of how jealousy can make us hate. I admit, I have felt heaps and buckets of jealousy over the last 2 years. It’s so shameful to be transparent but I hated seeing the world pass me by. I felt angry that others were living blessed lives while mine was falling into a pit of hell.
Hating the goodness in others lives just reflects on how much fine-tuning God needed to do in my own heart. Ouch.
I’m trying NOT to live screaming through yellow lights right now. My flesh wants to run as fast as it can to escape all the yuck parts of my life. I want everything back. All of it. Now. I know that’s not what I really need.
I need patience.
1. Everything, ev.er.y.thing. takes time.
– I will have a house again.
– I will do the things I think are important to me again.
– I will recoup what I have lost.
….in time.
2. Resentment will only ruin what I’m waiting for (in faith) from God.
– While I’m impatient, God is always patient with me.
– I am hard to handle.
– God is going to use everything, all the hurt…to make me more like Him.
3. I can camp at my broken places.
– If I only knew how incredibly God was going to arrange our lives, I would’ve shut up!
– I’m packing up my resentment & anger. If Joseph can do it, so can I.
– I don’t belong in a state of brokeness.
Listen, life is full of IT’S ALWAYS SOMETHING struggles. Losing and winning is all part of the game. Somehow, as children of God you and I have to surrender what we cannot control. I could not do a single thing about my husband’s job loss. Nothing. It put me in such a powerless state and for that I almost lost my dang mind.
What I’ve learned since is that the road may be long and the pain so intense that it feels unbearable…but God is doing something.
He will make a way where there seems none at all. Every time.
Today, I’m starting a brand new count. No more days of unemployment to stack up against us. We are walking in a newness that fills us up and blows our minds everytime we think about it. What we thought we needed…. oh, haha haha! Nope, not at all.
God had a better plan.
Lord,
Your ways are beyond my wildest dreams. Thank you. You know what I need and you love me more than I could ever deserve.
Amen
