I've mentioned before that I really go out of my way to keep my blog upbeat and positive. As you can imagine, that is sometimes a very difficult task...especially for me. And especially when it means leaving out a hugely major detail of your life over several months. But we recently received some good news, which we think means that this particular trial of our life is over, or at least that we'll get a respite.
The Story.
Without going into a great length of detail, Jacob and I have essentially been unemployed for months upon months. We left Texas in January for a job prospect that had burned out by the time we reached Utah. Jacob was still concentrating on his master's degree, and I spent all day looking for jobs for both of us. As the months passed and it became clear that we had very limited options, I took a seasonal, temporary position at that National Ability Center, where I had worked a couple of years before. We moved to Provo for the summer because Jacob got an internship that promised to turn into a job. We dipped into our savings to pay tuition, scrimped all summer long, tried to reassure each other that everything would work out, and then finally received word that his promised position was offered to someone else. For the third time in 2011 we packed up all of our belongings, and moved back in with Jacob's parents for the third time in two years.
Jacob completed his master's degree and my seasonal job ended. We spent long hours every day looking for jobs, refining our resumes, practicing for interviews, praying for something to come through. Weeks passed, and hope grew thin. For me particularly, it was a very dark time. I felt that I had been lied to. What was the use of all the hours I had spent studying, the semesters of straight A's, the money spent on tuition, the sacrifice of saving every penny while watching our friends indulge, if ultimately we couldn't even get a job to take care of ourselves?
As November approached and I looked forward to the coming holidays, I decided I needed an attitude change, and especially a greater focus on gratitude - and I needed some tangible proof that I was really pondering my blessings and trying to change my heart. While I was mulling this over, one day I stumbled on a craft that I immediately loved. I tweaked the idea here and there, got permission to put it on display for Thanksgiving, and set to work creating it.
It's a gratitude tree. You write on a leaf what you're thankful for and hang it on the tree. It's a very simple idea and maybe even a little childish, but I loved it. I loved knowing that I, as an individual, and we, as a family, were thinking hard and broadly about our blessings, instead of focusing on the feast alone.
As Thanksgiving drew closer, I thought about what I would hang on the tree. I thought about how grateful I was that Jacob's parents were willing to take us in. It was truly a blessing that we had somewhere to go when we hit trouble, because so many people don't have that option. I thought about having food on the table. I thought about the beauty of autumn days and the sunshine streaming in the windows and the promise of another day and my ability to run and stretch and jump and sing and do just about anything I wanted. I thought about friends and family and home in Virginia and the special gift of knowing that people are praying for you. I thought about my husband, and I thought about love, and I thought about having someone to lean on when things are so hard and too heavy to take care of yourself. And I thought about having a testimony of God in my heart, and what that had helped me through in the past.
It was already promising to be an amazing Thanksgiving. I could feel hope stirring up in me again, after being gone for so long. And then the most remarkable thing of all happened: we were hired. Both of us! At the same company, for the same position, hired on the same day, beginning on the same day. I felt like Heaven itself had come down and blessed us, and everything changed with that one simple gift. We started work on the Monday before Thanksgiving, and the relief felt unreal for days.
When it actually came time to put a leaf on the tree, I was surprised by how difficult it was. My blessings seemed too personal and special to put on display. In the end, I only hung two: one for my sweet and kind husband, and the other...
...seemed to say it all.
It was the greatest eye-opening, gratitude-building, and humbling Thanksgiving of my life. God be thanked for His mercy and grace and answers to prayers.
