Gratitude for Trials

For most of you who know me, you know that I generally have an early bedtime, so to be awake and writing at this time of night is a rarity. However, there is reason for my being up late. Tonight started out as a less than average night. I came home from work tired and worn out as usual to Dave, who was not so happy with me because of a little disagreement we had earlier in the day. So after sitting down for the night, we began a discussion talking about where we're at in life, where we're at in our marriage, and what things we need to work on right now. Although the discussion started out with more frustrations than anything, it ended on a really good note and with an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for what our Heavenly Father has given us.

As I've mentioned in a previous post, the beginning months and years of our marriage have had their fill of trials (as do most). Through this time, as we've suffered from multiple job losses and trouble getting pregnant and watched others our age seem to have success with both matters, we have wondered why these specific trials are those that we've had to face. I grew up in a home where my father had the same job for 30 years and layoffs were not something I understood. Dave has grown up as a hard worker who has always been valued for his strong work ethic and never thought that holding a job would be a challenge he'd have to face. And yet here we are, two years into our marriage, with three job losses already and an overwhelming question in our minds wondering if job stability will ever be something that we will be able to experience.

During these specific trials, I have listened to many people speak about their gratitude for the trials they have been given and the blessings that have accompanied those trials. And I have continually wondered how they could be grateful. I honestly never thought that I would come to a time in my life when I would be grateful these specific challenges I have been given. I had lost hope that I would ever see the blessings from these times.

Finally, tonight, it all clicked for me. As we have talked about our struggling economy and the large amounts of people who are also experiencing job losses, I couldn't help but feel grateful that these challenges have come at this time in our lives. There are so many people out there who have lost jobs while they have had large families to support and large bills to pay. Although we have suffered job loss, we have been lucky to experience it while we're young, without children, and while I am still working with an income.

And I realize that just because we have experienced layoffs early in life doesn't mean we will be immune to them later in life. But how grateful I am that we have learned how to deal with these challenges so that we will know how to face them in the future. I also think about how grateful I am for these life lessons that we have gained at such a young age. We are being taught how to live within our means and prepare for ourselves for any upcoming struggles in our economy and in turn within our family.

I can finally say that I truly feel blessed for these specific challenges that we have faced. I am grateful to our Heavenly Father for the many opportunities he is giving Dave and me to learn and to grow together. I only pray and hope for those of you who, too, are facing challenges that seem unbearable. I pray that you will get to your day when you can understand the reasons behind your trials and feel the incredible blessings that come with them.

Nothing Really

So, I'm feeling quite bad that I haven't posted anything in almost a month. But I have no exciting things going on in my life, and I have no pictures, and I just assume no one wants to read a boring, no picture, no excitement post. Well, too bad, cuz I'm subjecting all of you to the boredom today. It is about noon on Saturday, and I'm laying here still in my pajamas in complete misery. I started to get sick last Saturday with a sore throat and slight cough, and it has just progressed throughout the week. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to take time off work to rest and I haven't really been able to sleep at night with the horrible coughing, so I have just continued to go down hill and I feel like it's a never ending cycle. When will the misery end? I really hope I can get better soon, because I'd like a good night's rest soon. And I'd really like to feel well during the holiday festivities with family.

As for any updates with life, I really don't have too many. I started training this last week for a new position at work. I'm currently the office manager at work, but my biller is having a baby next month and won't be returning. I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to learn a new skill. However, I didn't really want to give up managment and my boss didn't want me to stop managing, so I am bringing more stress into my life and will take upon the billing and remain the business manager with an assistant/office manager to help me. I'm looking forward to the change, but not looking forward to having extra work while I'm still learning the billing. I hope it will come quickly and I will be able to handle both positions without getting too stressed out.

As for Dave, he is currently looking for a new job, so if anyone out there knows of anything available that would provide an okay income, but flexibility while he's in school, please let us know. I know that with the economy right now, it is near impossible to find a good job (we learned that lesson well when he was laid off last year), but we are going to continue to hope and pray that he will be able to find something soon.

Well, I hope all is well for everyone and that this season is a good one for everyone.

Halloween

Sorry, I have no pictures from Halloween. I am probably the absolute worst picture taker ever. Hopefully it will get better once we have kids. I'd hate to have my kids grow up and never have pictures to look back at. We didn't dress up anyway, so you're really not missing out on much without pics from the evening.

For not having any plans for our Halloween, we actually had a pretty fun time. We went to dinner with my cousin Taylor and his wife Tracy, and it was some good dinner at Goodwood Barbecue. Thank you Tracy for working at such a delicious restaurant. After dinner, we came back to our house to carve the pumpkins that have been sitting on our porch for the last couple weeks -- a little late I know, but at least we actually got to them.

Once we got done with our pumpkins, we decided that we needed some sugar, and caramel popcorn sounded really good. So we took a trip to Target to buy the ingredients for the goods. When we got back, Dave made A LOT of delicious caramel popcorn which we enjoyed eating (until we made ourselves sick from it) while we watched The Forgotten -- a somewhat scary movie for the holiday. After that, we called it a night.

Although it wasn't a night of major partying, it certainly was fun. I'm so glad we have family and friends close by to be able to just enjoy some quality time with other people.

So that was our Halloween for 2008. I guess we'll see if we decide to get a little more daring next year .... but let's be honest, that's not likely to happen.