Working with a God of miracles, part 1

Behind the bare bones facts of what we're up to (school, work, kids, life) is a story that is still developing, but I want to start sharing it. Sometimes I need to reread my own life story, especially the parts that shape my character, and this is one of those times in the making. So more for myself than anyone else, here's the scoop.

For the last couple of years, Tim has been taking just one or two classes each semester. This was partially for his sanity and partially out of necessity so he could work full-time. It was an okay system, but after needing to take every other semester off for one reason or another (baby! and baby again!), it meant that in 2 1/2 years at UVU, he'd completed barely more than a single full-time semester's worth of classes. No bueno.

At the same time, while Tim's enjoyed working at Novell, it's not a job that's going anywhere and it's not a career. He's been looking for a new job off and on for almost a year and the career-level, salaried jobs all require a completed degree, which is years and years away. Again, no bueno.

So back in May, Tim and I started talking about him taking more classes. We figured that if he took 3 classes per semester (9 credits), he could be done in 2 1/2 years. It would be hard to have him work full-time and keep up with 9 credits of computer science classes, and it would be a sacrifice for me to have him less available, but, we figured, it would be worth it in the long run.

Then in June, Tim found out that in order to keep his job as an intern at Novell, he needed to be going to school full-time, as in at least 12 credits per semester. Yikes. On the one hand, we were happy to have that extra push to get him through school even faster (only 2 years!). On the other hand, full-time school meant he'd have to work fewer than 40 hours per week to keep up with the homework. 

Cue the panic. Since losing my job in March, our finances have been stretched impossibly thin. Like, you know when you stretch a piece of chewed gum and holes appear in the middle, but it's still technically on strand of gum? Yeah, like that. We had holes in our monthly budget that we just couldn't cover without taking from savings, and after a few months, that was getting a bit thin too. So even without the school factor, it was clear that I needed to find work again.

I can't tell you how much anxiety this gave me. I really enjoyed not having to worry about work while we adjusted to having two kids - it made a tremendous difference in my postpartum experience (with Georgie, I tried to jump back into work way too quickly) and two kids gave me plenty to do as it was. But even if Tim found a higher-paying job, we needed a cushion for the month-to-month, and it just didn't make sense for me to not use my marketable skill set to help.

But here's the trick: I needed to be able to work from home. We couldn't afford any kind of daycare situation, plus, you know, I had a newborn, so it had to be something part-time that I could do during naps and at night. We started praying for the right opportunity to present itself and in July, I started looking. I checked KSL and Craigslist regularly, created a LinkedIn profile, got back on LDS Jobs, etc. etc. etc. It had been four years since I'd been job hunting and I felt completely out of shape, professionally speaking. I got super discouraged and/or overwhelmed every other day. (It didn't help that this was also the time of Rosie's worst sleeping stretch. Exhaustion = over emotional.)

I asked Tim for a priesthood blessing. He felt like he needed one, too, so first, he got a blessing from one of his brothers. It was amazing and perfect and addressed things in a more specific way than I'd even heard in a blessing before. We were blown away and came away feeling very known by the Lord. And the message we took from that experience was that Tim needed to focus on getting through school quickly, which was a nice bit of reassurance. A few days later, I was melting down again about everything (I'm a bad mom! I can't fit work into my life! I'm not qualified and I'll never find a job! The house is a mess! I'm failing, failing, failing!) and Tim was able to give me a blessing. 

I don't want to over share what was meant to be a personal, sacred experience, but I also want to be a witness of the Lord's hand in our lives. So. I will say that it was probably the most powerful blessing I've ever received. The only thing that compares is the blessing Tim gave me the night before Georgie was born in terms of the depth of the promises and the intensity of the spirit. Basically, this blessing was full of loving reassurance, specific directions and guidance, and the promise of miracles. As we talked about it later, Tim and I both felt that the Lord was taking us by the hands and saying, "Walk with me. This is going to be hard, but I'm going to strengthen you so you can bear your burdens. You will not only get through this, but come out of it better and stronger. Just trust me." We had been asking over and over to understand the "how": how are we going to support ourselves, how will we meet all our responsibilities, how will I find the right job, how will Tim manage to balance all his priorities, how will our family stay connected. And it felt very very difficult to move forward without being able to answer those "hows." But that blessing, more than anything else to that point, very firmly told us to stop trying to see the "how" and to just walk by faith through the darkness - "one step enough for me." And the best part is that it was such a clear and distinct reassurance that it wasn't hard to take a deep breath, square our shoulders, say "Okay," and mean it.

Stayed tuned for part 2...