Living in the Hard

Ya'll.  

Sometimes when you are in the South, that is all you need to say and everyone around you will start nodding their heads because they know.  They know everything you are thinking and feeling and hoping and dreaming.  All from that little word.  

I must stop here and say that I love living in the South.  

Anywho ... I have thought several (hundred) times that I would write a post about our life, but we have been living in the hard and it just didn't feel like a super fun post to write.  Heck.  It wasn't a super fun place to be living.  But, God asks us to do things that seem crazy and kind of not fair because He wants the glory and He knows it is for our best.  So, I tried to embrace the hard.  And squeeze the life out of it.

Let's see ... August was good.  We had the most darling senior pictures taken of Torrey.  School started.  My class is awesome (you must sing the word awesome in a falsetto).  They are a bit sweet, a lot of funny and a smidgen of ring-tailed tooter.  In other words ... they are PERFECT for me.  I was smitten from day one ... and yes, I know May is around the corner.  I. Will. Be. A. Mess.

And, then September hit.  Oh, the first 3 days were great. I lived them like I didn't have a care in the world. Then, came September 4th. And on that day I came home and Dean told me he had been laid off from Staples. As in after 13 years he no longer had a job. I just stared at him ... because I was waiting for the punchline. When I realized he wasn't joking, my heart raced for about 30 seconds before I told myself the way I was reacting was not from God. I think the first words out of my mouth might have been, "We are OK. God is going to get the glory." 

Ya'll. What I really wanted to do was to scream that it wasn't fair. But, what I chose say was "I will trust You." I am not a saint. I am the furthest thing from perfect. But, I knew that God would be faithful because He has proven Himself to me time and again. He did not need my help to fix it ... He just wanted me to trust that He could. And that He would.

So, we trusted. And lived our lives. And trusted. And laughed. And trusted. And we saw God do some wild and amazing things. And every thing that happened we knew was from Him. My favorite part of the Journey in the Hard (Ya'll. If you must go through hard, for crying out loud, give it a cute name. It won't make it any easier, but it will make you smile.) was hearing Torrey say, "Well, we prayed for that." And, believe me, He heard every crazy prayer we had ... some He answered quickly, some He just shook his head over and some He is still working on.

We are 3 1/2 months removed from September 4th. And Dean is employed. At Staples. Ya'll. I know. It makes no sense in this moment, but trust me it is good. God is good. He has been faithful. He has been kind. And, I'm sure right now He thinks He is freaking hilarious. And, it is kind of funny ... now. 

We aren't living in the easy. Life is still hard. We are walking a smidgen of hard this week. When I asked God why, He reminded me to trust Him. If you are silent you can hear Him. And He told me that He knows. He knows our hurts. He knows our desires. He knows. And He is working them all out. And when you get to see the full picture of His plan it will be awesome. You may even find yourself moving right back into the same office you left two months previously.