10/20/2010

When the Unexpected Happens

Question:
Our good friend lost his job last week. He was president of the company, so this was a bit unexpected. His wife is a dear friend of mine, so I briefly shared your experiences with her to let her know that they can emerge from this okay. What are your words of wisdom that I can share with them?


Answer:
A few years ago, my husband worked for Washington Mutual. One Friday, he left work (amid rumors of turmoil) working for WaMu and returned to work on Monday working for Chase. It became very apparent, very quickly that his days with employment were coming quickly to an end. We would get some severance and we had savings so I sat down right away and figured just how long we could get by. I wrote out a very detailed budget and cut out all the fluff of our lives. I found a reasonable health insurance plan and made a list of all the "extras" that had to be cut. I figured that we had a year before we started to go into debt. Our tight budget was to start the very first day that unemployment started. Fortunately, we never had to use our tight budget, but I was ready. I was prepared; mentally and financially. You never know what is going to happen, but it never hurts to be over prepared. Now, I have a year supply of laundry soap, toothpaste, body wash, shampoo, hair spray and 8+ months of food. We try to stay prepared for the unexpected.

Once the trials begin, I think sometimes it's easy to get wrapped up in the turmoil of the every day and we forget to look at the bigger picture. The Lord has a plan for each of us, sometimes that plan has a rocky road, but he knows how best to get us to where we need to be. Despite the challenges of the day to day, we will always fare better if we have faith in his plan for us. He knows us best. Of course it would have been easier if we could have just looked into the crystal ball and seen how wonderfully it would all work out, but then what would we have learned?


And most importantly, never forget the power of positive thinking. Life is only as good, or bad, as you think it is. So, chin up, put your shoulder to the wheel and keep on pushing through!



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