Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Grateful.

Tonight my heart is full of gratitude.

During a time when the financial and housing market in this country is crashing around us, my husband still has a job.

Will came home from work on Friday and informed me that his boss told their department that he was required to lay off yet another person by Monday morning. What you don't know is that they have already laid off everyone in their department over the last 6 months except for Will and two others. They were already doing the workload of several people.

"I can't do this. You are my core employees." His boss said. "I'm going to let you three talk it over and decide amongst yourselves and let me know Monday morning."

While we have watched employee after employee get laid off this year, Will has remained onboard. We wondered if it might finally be our turn to experience this turn for the worse.

So we fasted and prayed about what to do. The option of splitting 3 people's job into 2 person's hours was brought up as a possibility, but we knew our little family would not be able to survive on part time wages. Even if I were to take on more piano students, it would never equal the amount Will would have lost in salary by cutting his hours. Not to mention we would no longer have health benefits.

So Will went in this morning with the decision that he needed to stay strong, ask to keep his hours, and hope he would not be the one to go.

I got an email from Will around 11:30am letting me know that he still had a job, and they let one of the others go. I breathed a sigh of relief and said a silent prayer of thanks.

Sometimes I get so caught up in wanting this or that, or wishing we owned our own home, or that we didn't have to budget everything. But today I was reminded by how truly blessed we are. We have a roof over our heads, we have cars to drive and gas to put in them. We have food on our table, clothing on our backs. We have food storage in case we need it. We have money in savings, and very little debt. We have a job. And most of all, we have love in our home.

Today I am grateful.

6 comments:

Dan Thomas said...

I AM GRATEFUL YOU STILL HAVE A JOB. WORKING FOR LESS JUST WAS NOT A VERY GOOD OPTION. I AM SURE ON OF THE REASON WILL STILL HAS A JOB IS THAT HE IS SUCH A GOOD WORKER.

RoLo said...

Those days are always the ones that start out like crap and end up wonderful. It doesn't matter if you were eating noodles for dinner you are just grateful you can eat.

Thanks, I needed that.

Kate said...

I'm so glad he stayed on! Thanks for the good reminder to just be grateful.

Anonymous said...

What a blessing! It is hard to have reminders like that sometimes but good to be able to see how rich our lives truly are. :) N

Sandy said...

I am so happy for you guys. What a relief to know you still have a job. I'm sure part of your blessing comes from paying your tithing. The rest comes from you both being so good and it all comes from the Lord. Grateful is a beautiful word. Love you all!!

Stephen and Ileana said...

I am glad to hear that Will didn't lose his job, especially with the way the economy is now, you never know. I'm grateful too that I work for a very financially stable company that believes in keeping their employees, even if it means putting them in another position, before laying them off. Glad everything is going well for you guys.