There's a plan.

Never lucky, always blessed. What does that mean? It means that I believe that all the things that have happened and will happen in my life are not just random chance, luck or lack thereof, rather, I believe that God has blessed and continues to bless my life.

Do I always understand what He is doing? Absolutely not. I have asked WHY about so many things that have happened in my life. Usually, I ask why while I'm in the thick of things. Usually, when I get a little distance (mainly time) from a situation, I can figure sort of figure out why it happened to me, or how something can make me a better person even if it seemed, well, crappy at the time.

Example: Why did Tim lose his job at Farmers? It seemed horrible at the time since he was the breadwinner. We both freaked out, it happened so fast. On Monday he came home and said they might be re-configuring his department, and on Friday, I heard the garage door opening a good 2 hours before he was due home, and there he was, with a box of his stuff. Just like that. No severance, no nothing. I was so mad at that stupid company for letting him go. Didn't they realize he had two little ones at home depending on him? He worked his ass off, didn't they notice? It really seemed like a shitty situation.What the heck were we going to do?

Now that I am on the other side of it, I can see the good, the growth that came out of it. Three days after he was laid off, I had a job offer from church in pretty much a dream position. It was part time, so it would pay about half of what Tim made, but that would at least slow down the rapid consumption of our savings while we waited for him to find something new. I worked a couple days per week and Tim hunted for jobs and took care of the kids while I was gone. I got a taste of what it would be like to be a working mom...and discovered that I didn't really like it. Too distracting, too much begging people to do their share. We got to spend a lot of time together during the three months that Tim was home. We enjoyed each other's company, the girls loved having Dad home. I loved the flexibility of having an extra set of hands around the house. And then he found a new job with a better company, and hours that allow us both to exercise like we want to, get up early, get moving and start our days off on the right foot. A hidden blessing.

The loss of his old job caused me to take a closer look at our finances, to put away our credit cards and form a budget, to stop spending more than we were making and begin saving for retirement and giving to church, a little at a time. Good ol' Dave Ramsey guided us to start making our money behave. Thank God we learned this now instead of 5 years from now. Would we even have made it 5 years? Would we have had any savings left at that point?

All the extra time gave me the chance to do some soul searching and discernment. I'd been begging God to reveal His plan to me, and I kind of meant that I wanted to know exactly what He had in store for me...y'know, for the next 20 years or so. Sounds crazy, doesn't it? I finally realized that. I realized that I am not going to know what the rest of my life is going to look like. To try and figure that out would really just drive me crazy, make me frustrated. What I did figure out is that I just need to know what I am being called to do today, right now. And once I narrowed the scope of my searching, I discovered that God is calling me home right now, with my kids and my family. Nothing super heroic, no official job title or money coming in, not working at church. Just home. With my girls. Teaching them to be good people, and conquering laundry and dishes in the process. It doesn't seem like much, but I take this calling seriously. Think about it. What if every parent did? What if every mother or father realized that they are raising a human (or multiple humans) and affecting the future of the world? I feel like they might be a little more careful with what they say and do. Might think things through a little more. What kind of an impact would that have on society? But that's a topic for a different day.

Our time with Tim home made us realize that we need to be more careful with our money, our time, and what we do. Our lives are precious. Anything can happen at any time. You can get a phone call one day that your Dad has cancer, or that your Grandma is breathing her final breaths. Tim losing his job gave us the gift of time, which made us realize how valuable time really is.

God had (and still has) a plan. Tim's back at his new job, and I am slowing things down. I'm cutting back on excess and enjoy the little moments with my little people before they become big people. If it weren't for Tim losing his job, we'd still all be on autopilot. Sometimes God has to shake things up, really mess them around, before we stop to think, take a closer look at our lives, and fully rely on Him. I am grateful for the opportunity.