Wednesday, February 5, 2014

The unexpected is always coming ....

So many things are going to my head right now as I sit in my kitchen sipping my coffee watching children play. I don't know where to begin this blog post so much is been going on lately that I have too much to say or too little I'm not sure which. It's been a While since I posted  so here we go. 
My husbands last day of work as assistant manager at a well recognized pharmacy is this Friday. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I believe that it is the best thing for sure that he no longer works retail, being that after 10+ years of service he's been offered a demotion for no reason other then that his position is being deleted with of course a cut in pay. He in no way deserves any of the things that are happening and of course has things lined up, resumes on the ready, and a plan. The company unexpectedly offered up severance plans for all who are being affected. However as a husband and father of a family of six, his income sustains our everyday life and my part time income has always been ends meet until now. It's a little scary. It's a lot Scary. It makes me think of when we had our twins. A month or so before they were born his company cut overtime. We lost a great deal of our income without his overtime and with all of the unexpected expenses of having twins we were ..... In a spot so to speak. We had no notice and no time to plan. Our bills went past due, we fell behind on rent, had to make life decisions at the pump "If I put in $x of gas today I can get groceries to last till Thursday but won't have gas on Friday to get to the bank with my check to cash it". It was getting rough, then we had the twins early, at 34 weeks, they were in NICU and too small and fragile to come home. We were consumed with worry and angst and always at the hospital or getting our two school age children back and forth to class and he of course was still working hard. The time came when we had to face the undeniable. We had nowhere to go when the apartments manager would met with us and say we could not continue to carry on behind on rent. We had to catch up or move out. With no money to catch up, the expenses of commuting to and from the hospital several times a day, then after a month bringing home beautiful brand new infant(s).... We were against a wall. A strangely tense happy little wall. Our little family was together and healthy. We had love and friends to confide in. Eventually when we exhausted the graces of the apartment manager we had no where to go but we had each other. We put our children first and they never knew how bad things were looking. We carried on as though nothing had changed. There was school to go to, laundry to do dishes to wash homework to complete. Thank God for our cousins, our best friends, who took us in. Without them we would have been going no where fast. 
We kept our faith. We held tight to each other. Took care of our children. We believed that it would work out. We had to.  We paid what we could to our gracious cousins, caught up with what we owed the apartments we had called home and we made it our mission to save what we could scrape together and get on our feet fast and we did! It took us about 5 months or so. 
As we head into another uncharted path I am scared but I have the same faith that we will be ok. We had a plan in place this time. We learned to be prepared and know it is always coming. We also are fortunate enough this time to have been given notice. We have a cushion but it still shakes us to our core. I believe in my husband. I believe that God only puts in your path trials that you can overcome. I have faith again that it will all be ok. It has to.