Day 142 - A lot

Over the last 6 months we have been living on faith & savings, but as of now we are living completely on faith and nothing else. This last week has been really emotional and exhausting for us, realizing that we have gotten to the place we never thought we would get to. The place where the unemployment checks alone do not come close to matching what we need to sustain. I just keep wondering how we got here. How a middle class family with two jobs and a large income can get to a place where there is nothing to show? Where every dime of savings we have saved since the day we got married is gone? It's as if our old life officially does not exist anymore. The hardest part is that there is no reason. We didn't gamble our savings, or lose it in a bad financial decision; we just lost our jobs and are living in a time where there is financial distress. We can't point fingers or blame each other, we just have to deal with it and keep trying our hardest to turn it around.

I have been crying a lot lately. My tears have expressed every emotion possible, sadness, frustration, gratitude, surprise and so many others. Yesterday I was crying thinking about how I have lived a life of privilege, having everything I needed at all times. In fact, I always was able to give to others, never needing to really accept anything for myself. Wow, I have lived thirty-one years like that. I am so thankful for my parents, for taking care of me and always providing me with everything I needed (and they still do above and beyond.....at all times).

This week has been a week in our life that I will never forget for as long as I live. Mark and I have had to look at what is the most important and bare minimum for our family. We have had to make decisions and look at future possibilities that we never really worried about before. I have become thankful for things that never occurred to me, like having parents who have a roof over their heads and want to help us if we need it. Understanding that your parents, at any age, will give up whatever they need to for you, reminds you of the love that they have for you and how lucky you are.

I am also reminded that you can never out-give God. I have really been trying to protect exactly what we are going through on this blog, mostly because it's not just my life, but it's the life of my husband and kids and I have a duty to protect their feelings too. So I have been living in a world where I skim the surface and try and dive down on certain topics, but I am very careful of hitting the bottom. Things have just been happening and I am at a place where I need to give you more because this blog is about real faith and right now, that's all I have. Even though we have nothing left in savings, God has been providing for us in some humbling ways. I touched upon the fact that we have had some generosity come upon us this week. On Monday a sweet friend dropped of a "birthday gift" with a gift card wanting to help us. I was touched. I went to the mail on Tuesday and a very old friend sent us a very large gift card to help us with groceries and other needed items. I was in tears and beyond overwhelmed, I haven't seen her since junior high, who does that? On Wednesday Mark received a check from some business that he had done, we didn't know it was coming. On Thursday I received a very unexpected email from a dear friend who is sending us a overly generous check because God put it on her heart (tears, tears, tears). Then on Friday, at my doorstep is one of our closest friends with another large gift card. He disguised it as a thank you for Mark helping them with some stuff, but I know better. More crying. After he left I found out that my church would be able to help us with a one-time payment for our health insurance that will last us two more months. I cried again because not one of these people had any idea how bad things are right at this moment. I don't know how you may see all of these things, but to me they are a reminder of the human spirit and the unselfish nature people have. They have all out-given me in any aspect of what I though giving was all about. They all brought me to my knees in gratitude; I have never been in the place to say the most heartfelt thank you I know how. And my gratitude towards God took a full week and some introspective to see, while I was spending my week frustrated with God for putting us here I didn't see the bigger picture. I didn't see that he was out-giving me.

Yesterday morning I drove to my church to pick up some food that my church had told me to get. I didn't really know much about what it was. I got out of my car and walked up to some volunteers who gave me a big box of frozen foods. If I didn't know what it was to be humble, this did it for me. This whole week did it for me. The woman who never accepted help, is accepting food and money from others. In a blink of an eye I went from a working, two-income family with no financial worries to a mom accepting help for my kids. I let go of my pride and humbled myself in a way I never could have understood until yesterday. And yet, in my heart I know how much worse it could be and that alone brings me to tears. I am officially a changed woman. Life has hit me hard, and although I did nothing to deserve it, I am learning a lesson that I never could have learned in any other way. I also learned that true strength is allowing yourself to be humbled for the good of your family, pride becomes just a silly word.

No matter what you have or where you are in life, to think that your life can not drastically change in the blink of an eye is foolish. Be thankful for everything you have, not just the health of your family, but for the food on your table, the ability to have healthy options, the roof over your head and the love of your friends and family. The less I have the more thankful I become for the necessary things in life and for those who surround me. I am thankful for the girlfriends who cheer me up with time away and the parents who give us small luxuries like a day at Disneyland. I am thankful for my children who roll with the changes and still smile no matter what and for a husband who never stops trying. I am thankful that although God has brought me to my knees, I can look around me and see how much I still have compared to so many others.

Today I am thankful that I can share my experience and my faith as a bookmark in our life. It may not be sunshine and rainbows right now but it is exactly where we are.

"When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you." -Isaiah 43:2

"But when I am afraid, I will put my trust in you." -Psalm 56:3

"We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair." - 2 Corinthians 4:8

"Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done." -Philippians 4:6