Some Background
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Our lives changed the year my husband Rich and I moved from our home in Chicago to a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Nine months pregnant with our second child, we packed up our lives, said goodbye to family and friends, and headed west in our rusty red Jeep so that Rich could pursue a new job opportunity. Uprooting our lives and starting over was difficult, but the hope for positive change seemed promising.
Within nine months, the awful events of 9-11 transpired, and devastating ripple effects were felt nationwide. One of the smaller felt-consequences was the loss of financing for the start-up business which had newly employed my husband. The company went under, and suddenly Rich was out of work. I was floundering. Trying to deal with a new baby, meet new friends, re-group financially, and process the newly felt losses in our life left me feeling lonely, scared, and deeply depressed.
As a person of faith, I began to wrestle with darkness. Surprisingly, narrow rays of light only began to appear when I found the courage to sit still with my pain rather than run away from it (and ultimately myself). Part of my healing process also included a Friday morning biblestudy at our church. I began to experience God's compassion and care in the face of friendship. Through the love and support of women with whom I could share my problems, pain, and ponderings I began to find hope instead of despair. At the same time, however, our financial frustrations continued. . . Rich eventually found a new job (falling back on the same work he'd been doing in Chicago), but the pay scale from Illinois to Minnesota was radically different, a marked decrease in his hourly pay.
Recovering from the financial hole that a job loss can create seemed slow going over the next couple of years, but slightly hopeful. And then, with Rich's new construction-related position we faced another setback: lay offs due to a serious slump in the housing market. After ten months of scraping by, and waiting for that "promised" call to return to work (that still has not come), Rich started his third job since our move six years ago. Once again, we feel like we are standing at the base of a mountain, hoping to climb up and out of this monetary pit. This time, though, with two seasons of unemployment behind us, it feels like we are facing twin peaks.
The details that I've left out. . .my own career path, careful budgeting to stay afloat, visits to the local food shelves to feed our family, cutting back to one car, foregoing opportunities to buy a home, scrutiny from family and friends, random acts of kindness that lifted our spirits, a changing world-view, and learning generousity in such a season of drought. . .are all pieces of my story that will appear in later posts. Hopefully, this is an adequate nutshell version of where we've been and where we're going, and why so many of my thoughts are related to money and what God's hopes might be for us in all of this.
Within nine months, the awful events of 9-11 transpired, and devastating ripple effects were felt nationwide. One of the smaller felt-consequences was the loss of financing for the start-up business which had newly employed my husband. The company went under, and suddenly Rich was out of work. I was floundering. Trying to deal with a new baby, meet new friends, re-group financially, and process the newly felt losses in our life left me feeling lonely, scared, and deeply depressed.
As a person of faith, I began to wrestle with darkness. Surprisingly, narrow rays of light only began to appear when I found the courage to sit still with my pain rather than run away from it (and ultimately myself). Part of my healing process also included a Friday morning biblestudy at our church. I began to experience God's compassion and care in the face of friendship. Through the love and support of women with whom I could share my problems, pain, and ponderings I began to find hope instead of despair. At the same time, however, our financial frustrations continued. . . Rich eventually found a new job (falling back on the same work he'd been doing in Chicago), but the pay scale from Illinois to Minnesota was radically different, a marked decrease in his hourly pay.
Recovering from the financial hole that a job loss can create seemed slow going over the next couple of years, but slightly hopeful. And then, with Rich's new construction-related position we faced another setback: lay offs due to a serious slump in the housing market. After ten months of scraping by, and waiting for that "promised" call to return to work (that still has not come), Rich started his third job since our move six years ago. Once again, we feel like we are standing at the base of a mountain, hoping to climb up and out of this monetary pit. This time, though, with two seasons of unemployment behind us, it feels like we are facing twin peaks.
The details that I've left out. . .my own career path, careful budgeting to stay afloat, visits to the local food shelves to feed our family, cutting back to one car, foregoing opportunities to buy a home, scrutiny from family and friends, random acts of kindness that lifted our spirits, a changing world-view, and learning generousity in such a season of drought. . .are all pieces of my story that will appear in later posts. Hopefully, this is an adequate nutshell version of where we've been and where we're going, and why so many of my thoughts are related to money and what God's hopes might be for us in all of this.
