Posts Tagged ‘you’re fired’

Brand New Count

Monday, July 30th, 2018

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

Caught Off Guard

Wednesday, July 13th, 2016

grace will

I’m on day 7 of my new life. On Thursday my hubby came home to give me the news that he’d lost his job. I’d be lying if I told you I handled it with joy and grace. My high strung personality just doesn’t respond like that. I cried. Lost my cool. Wished I knew karate.

Life is like a roller-coaster. One minute you’re up and soaring like an eagle and the next you’re plummeting to the ground at speeds that feel like they’re going to kill you dead. Up down Up down. Twist turn. Slam on the brakes.

Losing a job is painful.

While he explained the details of the event, my mind raced around (surely it’s a wife thing) imagining all the stuff I needed to get rid of in my house…so it could sell before the bank foreclosed on it. Then I moved on to our daughter who is “so close” to graduation and all the hard work she’s put in to getting to this precious destination. Next, our youngest who is dreaming of a wedding in the coming year….how would we ever pay for it without a job? And our son, who’s a thousand miles away reeling in his own job loss.

What are we going to do?

I want you to know that GRACE doesn’t come easy in moments like this. Matter of fact, here on day 7 I’m still searching out my feelings and praying for how to move on minus a rotten attitude.

The flesh is weak and the mind is a battlefield.

I’ve felt pretty much every emotion — I’ve gotten angry, imagined being mocked or ridiculed, wished I could wake up from this bad dream and also felt hopeful. I know God doesn’t miss a thing….and this job loss situation matters to Him just as much as it does to me.

He is in control.

future

I have to trust Him and believe He has a plan. Even as I wrestle with medical issues that are still a mystery and the guilt of buying a “new to me” car.

He isn’t caught off guard. He is God, Jehovah-Jireh!

wonders

Lord,
Forgive me for my tiny faith. Show me how to lean on you when I am afraid. Open the door to the place we belong.
Amen