Thank you!

I want to thank everyone for your prayers and thoughts for us during the past week. We are blessed to have so many friends & family behind us praying for our situation.

Todd has a few interviews set up for this week, and he is working on scheduling more. We are shocked that he already has interviews and it has only been a week! What a HUGE blessing!

I will continue to keep you up to date on what is going on. Again, thank you so much. We have felt every prayer.

Our fear realized...

(Another long one...)

If you read the previous post you kinda know what has been going on in our lives. Well, it happened Thursday, Todd no longer has a job, nor will he be receiving a paycheck for his work last week. He is trying to get as many resumes out as he possibly can. The upside is, he hasn't touched but 1/2 of his list of possible jobs. Usually, it is a pretty short list of contacts, but this time the list keeps growing, thanks to the people in our lives!

I am still really nervous and not sure of things to come in the very near future. Bills come due and there is no more income from his job. I am very excited as to where he will be working. I want him to be happy at the new job. I didn't realize until he mentioned it the other night, but he had been at his current job for 8 years. Of those 8 years, he has liked his job approximately 3 months (accumulative!). I hope and pray that we will be blessed with a job that he enjoys going to and will benefit our family. (Side note: I have never once been able to be added to his insurance since we have been married; the Premiums were 2x higher than me on a individual plan. Since Collin was born, he has been on my insurance because it was cheaper, still. The insurance we did have was AWFUL! It didn't pay hardly anything out to cover well visits or other services like shots. I loathed writing the check every month to the ins. company because I knew we would never get it back. We were just throwing our money away!) All that being said, I am really hoping for great benefits, too!

We are still in desperate need of prayer. Since we have no income coming in, we are pulling savings and a few other resources to pay bills. Pray that this will keep our heads above the rushing waters until he gets his new job. Please pray for our strength and patience during this time. When things like this happen, you want it resolved yesterday. We will need every bit of patience we have to get through this. Please pray for us as a family. I don't want the stress of this situation to overcome our relationships with one another. Satan is trying to weasel his way in, and I don't want him to gain an inch. God is in control. He knows our situation and he knows the outcome.

I was at the store yesterday grocery shopping. My mom, bless her heart (& sore back), met up with me to help me out with the bill. I was standing talking to a friend I had happened to run into, and a random stranger walked past. She was going through her coupons and walked up to me and handed me a $5 coupon off my total grocery bill! That might not sound like much to you, and it normally wouldn't to me, but that was very meaningful to me in that moment. Little did she know she had just "blessed the socks off of me"! In that moment God said, "See, I am taking care of you! Don't worry." It is so hard in the good times to listen to God and pay attention to His blessings. It is in the hard times you stop and realize he is walking right beside you and holding your hand the entire ride. That $5, by no means, covered my grocery bill, but that moment was the best encouragement anyone could have given me at this point in our lives.

Moral of the story: Bless others! You NEVER know how much someone needs a blessing.

I am sorry for the long posts lately, but there is a lot I have had on my heart!

Please pray!

(This is a LONG post)

For those of you in our small group at church, you know the situation we are going through, but I will explain it to the rest of you.

Friday night after dinner, I found out from Todd that his company is going through some major financial issues. So serious, that they might not be making payroll for the employees. This would include us! I am panicked, but Todd seems to be taking it well, which is rare. Usually, he tends to stress about these things and I tend to be calm. We have struggled this past year on and off. The difference now is, we don't know if we will be getting a check every other week.

We are Christ followers and believe that God WILL take care of us and provide for us, but it is so hard to keep thinking positively when the numbers DO NOT work out. If you don't have the money, you don't have the money. I am really struggling with trusting Him and how this is going to work out. I am terrified as to what will happen between now and the conclusion of this not so fun trial.

I said all this to beg for your prayers! Todd really needs a better job/career change. We are in desperate need to be in a more stable job environment. Todd & I both need prayer in trusting God and what changes he is making on our lives. We are being tested in our faith. It seems as though Satan has stepped into our home a few too many times this year trying to crush us. My stability is in my home and family. Satan knows that if he disrupts that, our faith will be tested and we will doubt God and His power.

I am not perfect. I do doubt God's power, but He always takes care of us and we end up stronger than we were before the trial. I have been praying for a while for my faith to be stronger, to become closer to God, and to trust Him more. Well, I got my wish! We are having to trust God more than we have in a long time.

We would really appreciate your prayers. Please pray for our situation and for our faith in God's power over it.