We are so blessed

Lately it’s felt like nothing has gone right in our lives. A year ago Mike lost his job and hasn’t been able to find a full time job since. I got pregnant at a very un-ideal time. I am always uncomfortable because I am enormously pregnant in the middle of a hot, humid, Florida Summer. I had to spend a very nerve racking night in the hospital. Mike didn’t get the bailiff job that we were really hoping and praying for. Our air conditioning went out and we need new tires for our only car. I’m not feeling like the best wife or mother lately because my patience is wearing very thin. I feel like all I do is complain…so how’s this for the world’s biggest one-hundred-and-eighty-degree flip flop:

Wednesday (also Mike’s birthday) we got the news that Mike didn’t get the bailiff position that we so desperately needed. We felt nothing but gloom and doom and had no idea what our next move was going to be. (We still don’t!) I posted the news on an LDS Families Bulletin Board on Babycenter.com where I’ve been posting for nearly four years. After a very long, emotional day and a meeting with our Bishop, I received an email from a perfect stranger. I “know” her through Babycenter, but we’ve not ever actually had a conversation. Just ‘seen’ her in passing while posting on Babycenter. She saw my post and wanted to do something to help. She said she felt inspired by my situation to share her abundance and offered to send me a gift card for something that we needed. After a long humbling moment I gratefully accepted her very generous offer and told her that at this point a Babies R Us gift card would help us most since we needed a new stroller and car seat and I had no idea where that money was going to come from. The very next day at 10am we received a package from her that included a $200 gift card to Babies R Us (more than enough to cover the stroller) as well as a gift card for Subway with enough to cover our family for at least two meals.

That same afternoon I received a letter from my Grandma and Grandpa saying they saw my previous post on my blog about my hospital stay and thought we could use some extra help. Enclosed was a check for $100.00. Talk about perfect timing.

Then there’s my mom. Like I said before, Wednesday was Mike’s birthday, and she was a little late getting him a card. That day at lunch (before she heard about the job) she felt prompted to put some extra money in his birthday card. She said she somewhat pushed that thought aside and was going to think about it. After she received the text message from me with our news she knew why she was prompted to slip in some extra cash.

While Mike still doesn’t have a job…we are able to buy a new stroller and car seat, pay for our air conditioning to be fixed and get the tires that are so needed for our car.

I am so amazed at the generosity of my family and strangers. It’s so wonderful to know that there are people out there who really do listen to promptings from our Heavenly Father and act on them. It’s been very humbling to go from being angry with Heavenly Father for our situation to overcoming those feelings. How wonderful it is to have a small glimmer of hope. Hope is something that I have not felt in a very very long time…but in the last couple of days I have learned that my Father in Heaven knows me. He knows what trials I need in order to grow. He also knows my limits. Once I feel like I can’t take anymore He lets me know in His very perfect way that I am loved and that He is very aware of me.

Thank you to everyone who has offered help to our family…whether it be kind and encouraging words, prayers, meals, money or a listening ear and shoulder to cry on. We are so blessed.