Monday, December 28, 2009

2009: A Year Remembered

The year 2009 brought about the biggest trials my family and I have ever been through. This is a year that in many ways I wish I could just forget or wake up from and have it be a really bad nightmare, but then I realize that I have grown and matured through the trials that we were faced with this year and without these trials I wouldn't be where I am now both mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. If our faith is never tested how does it grow? If we never go through the difficult times how will fully comprehend the love our God has for us? If things were always wonderful and rosy we would never understand our need for the Lord and come to a place where we are able to let it all go and let Him work in ways only He can do.
The first whopper of a trial that came our way was on February 28th. Jon came home with the news that he had been laid off and had one month to find another job. That was at terrifying thing in this economy. Here we were a family of 4 faced with a job search in this pitiful market.
Three weeks later, trial #2 hit us. I went through one of the darkest times of my life when I was faced with my own mom's mortality when she was diagnosed with lung cancer in late March. I am very close to my mom and have always depended on her for so much. She is my best friend and confidant and the one person who can tell me that everything was going to be alright and I knew it would be. She was always so energetic and healthy and to be hit with this news of cancer in her body was beyond my worst nightmare. Before we got the full diagnosis I definitely went through the depths of despair and realizing that I might not have her around for long. Words cannot come close to describing what I felt so I won't even try to explain, just trust me that I now understand what it means to be in the depths of despair. Now my family was faced with losing our income and my mom facing cancer surgery. Whew! Praise the Lord mom's cancer ended up being localized to one very small spot and the doctors were successful in removing it all with surgery alone! It was the very best outcome possible for this situation and I am extremely happy and thankful to report that she is cancer free today! She is still regaining mobility back in her right arm and shoulder but she has come so very far!
Jonathan accepted a 100% commission based job the day of my mom's surgery. Neither of us were very happy about it but it was the only half way decent option and we were out of time. Quickly we realized it was going to take us down a financial road we never wanted to go down. One Hundred Percent commission and no benefits makes for extremely tough times. So tough that we thought for a couple of months that we were going to have to sell our home and move in with my parents and we had to receive assistance from various people to pay our bills...
While we were right smack in the middle of this financial crisis we were hit with yet another massive trial, I think the biggest of them all and most devastating emotionally. On June 26th I got a phone call telling me that Jon's mom has very suddenly and VERY unexpectedly passed away. She was out in Oklahoma helping take care of one her grandchildren while her daughter gave birth to their second child. Nobody was expecting this as we thought she was in decent health and still fairly young at only 59. I was the one who had to break the news to Jon. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. With him working so hard at this new job and it not bringing in enough income he was already very stressed but to tell him that his mother, whom he talked with almost daily and was very close to, had passed away...words do not describe... So we were thrust into this situation that we had never thought we would be faced with at our young ages. I cannot go into all the spiritual and mental and emotional issues that we both went through during this time because we still struggle with her passing even today but mostly because sometimes there aren't words accurate enough to make the reader comprehend the depth of the emotion. I never thought we would make it through all this. There were times I felt I was walking on threads of sanity. I thought at some points that I'd never see God's blessings again, that we'd never recover from all this devastation...
God is good. God is faithful even when we cannot see it or feel it. It doesnt' matter whether or not we believe that He is good or that He is working on our behalf, because whether or not we believe it, God is who is He, never changing, full of mercy, grace, goodness and provision. Jon decided that he had had enough of the insurance job not paying our bills and he did something he never wanted to do again, and that was go back into the cell phone retail business. He realized that he was able to make an hourly wage, have commission and great benefits and that was better than what we currently had. He also was finally motivated and inspired to go back to college and finish his degree in Software Engineering so he could one day have a stable good paying job that would take care of his family and be something he would enjoy. God has rewarded his efforts and suddenly all the money we had been waiting on from the insurance business came pouring in. It was literally like a job experience. We had been in a financial crisis and now we were experiencing a financial miracle. We found ourselves at a point where we were finally able to afford a newer van. (That actually came from me me getting into coupons and cutting our grocery bill more than half which gave us what we needed for a monthly car payment plus some). I found myself stronger emotionally than I used to be and with a deeper ground faith in the Lord. We came through the fire and I think we weren't burned as much as refined! We are still working through things, but I know God is right there with us guiding us, strengthening us and loving us every step of the way.
I think that the biggest blessing this year brought us was Aden accepting Christ as His personal Savior! Back in March when things were very difficult and uncertain I got to be apart of my son asking Jesus into his heart. He asked me on morning on the way to town in the car if he could ask Jesus to come live in his heart. I was overcome with amazement and excitement and of course told him he could. We prayed together while I was driving and right there in his little car seat in the back of the car he accepted Jesus into his heart. This month, one evening while he and Emma were cleaning up their rooms, I overheard him telling her about asking Jesus into his heart and told her that she could do the same thing too because God loves her all the time! Nothing more precious than that!
I am looking forward to a more peaceful 2010 and I believe that God has some good things headed our way. I hope you all have a wonderful 2010 and that God showers you with his love, grace and provisions no matter what you go through!

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