This Economy

     Wow, what a crazy few years it has been.  Everyone I know has either been directly affected or has close family and friends who have been affected by the economy.  Arizona has been seriously hit and has been ranked for sad things, "Most failies living under the poverty level".  That is just mind blowing.  Many of you know our story, Mike lost his job, designing subdivisions, a little over two years ago and we lost 70% of our income.  He was unemployed for almost two whole years and life in our house was not great.  I am sad to say, my faith in God was not always as it should be and my willingness to work through this with my husband was not always as it should be either.  However, looking back, I am so thankful we have been through this time...and believe me, there were some bad, bad days.
     In October of last year, Mike began working fulltime for a new company, in a brand new field and he is starting at the very bottom, making half of what he was making at the Civil Engineering firm, but he loves it.  I had been working fulltime for the last year and both of us knew that two of us working was not what we wanted for our kids.  In December, we really felt God telling us it was time for me to quit my job and come home, but man oh man, we would be making less money that we had made the whole two years of his unemployment!  Yikes!!  Toward the end of January, I quit my job.  I became a fulltime stay at home mom, no part time job, no "make money at home schemes", we were just trusting that since we were going where God was leading, He would work it out. 
     So here we are and it is great.  We are happier and more peaceful than we have been in the last 10 years and I believe we have this economy to thank for that.  We were forced to think about what was really important to us, we found that God was bigger than our problems and He provided everything we had needed and more.  We made hard choices to give things up that were just causing us undue stress, even though we did not realize it.  We rearranged our family to be exactly what we started our marriage thinking it would be...and God's plan for us is amazingly perfect.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."  Jeremiah 29:11