A New Stage

Can I just say this has not been an easy post to write. Sometimes it is hard to know that what you are posting could be read by all sorts of people. It involves lots of thinking about what you really want "all the world" to know. Life has changed pretty dramatically for us. Depending on the day, this post has taken on a lot of different slants. My husband was laid off, due to corporate restructuring, just shy of two weeks ago.

Let's just summarize my many deleted thoughts and say, unemployment sucks. I don't like that my children have to worry about money. It's sad that every prayer now includes, "Please help Dad to find a job." No need to worry that they are becoming repetitious prayers for they also now include that we won't have to move.

My seven year old came to me the other day and said, "We all need to go and start looking for a job for Dad." I had to try hard not to laugh, for the way she said it was as if we were looking for a lost item. If only it was that simple.

The bright side of our current situation is that I get to have my husband around a lot.  I love having my husband home! Hey, who wouldn't wish for free, easy access to a babysitter(I think my husband may start to think that's the only reason I like him home). At least he gets to see how much I usually have to do with little ones in tow.  We are also starting to whittle down on that "honey do" list. 

Unemployment means having all this time on your hands that you wish you had when working. The irony is that you have no money to go and do anything. We were blessed with a good severance package, which is a tremendous piece of mind right now, but we still have to be very careful financially for who knows how long that package will need to stretch. That is probably the hardest part. The unknown. Especially for a women who likes to have a plan. It effects everything for there is no idea what the future is going to bring.

It takes a lot of patience. I recently taught a Young Women lesson on this very subject and could especially relate to these thoughts by Dieter F. Uchtdorf. "Patience-the ability to put our desires on hold for time-is a precious and rare virtue. We want what we want, and we want it now. Therefore, the very idea of patience may seem unpleasant and, at times, bitter. Nevertheless, without patience, we cannot please God;we cannot become perfect. Indeed, patience is a purifying process that refines understanding, deepens happiness, focuses action, and offers hope for peace."

We were blessed to have been given an unofficial heads up of this lay-off about six weeks before it actually happened. We choose not to tell the kids for a variety of reasons. One of which was the hope that we might secure another job.

Gotta love applying for jobs. It's all a guessing game as to what key words to enter so that it makes it past the computer generated HR process. The other day, my husband went through the long process of entering ALL his information. He immediately got a response back that said he was not qualified. Apparently he hadn't listed  time management as one of his skills amongst the fifty or so other skills he had listed. Ugh!

As time continues to go on and all of my husbands efforts hasn't even produced an interview, I have found myself especially relating to these words. "Patience is far more than simply waiting for something to happen-patience requires actively working toward worthwhile goals and not getting discouraged when results don't appear instantly or without effort. Patience is not passive resignation nor is it failing to act because of our fears.... Patience means active waiting and enduring. It means staying with something and doing all that we can-working, hoping, and exercising faith;bearing hardship with fortitude, even when the desires of our hearts are delayed" (Dieter F. Uchtdorf). 

We will continue doing all we can and try to not get discouraged. We are striving to follow this scripture "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding."  Proverbs 3:5. I have no idea what the Lord has in store for us. All I can do is trust Him. I also cling to the fact that when my husband was first given a heads up he was relatively calm and not that worried about it.

For now, I'm striving to just enjoy how my life is currently. I have no idea what changes are in store and the last thing I want is not have fully appreciated what I have today.


*If you hear of any jobs for a mechanical design engineer we would love a referral or a good word put it. Never know where that next job might come from.