I spent the next few months before the severance money ran out, trying my hardest to get something written.  It had to be the time now.  Getting laid off work was the event that would catapult me in to being a successful author, right?  Uh….Nope. 

I tried starting my own business, and I shacked up in my sister’s office space.  That lasted a couple months at best, because that darn president didn’t give me the free money I was hoping for.  Still, it was way fire to spend some time with my sister!  I even got to see Riley and Kali a lot because they weren’t in school yet, and the office became their daycare center some days. The conference room was their playroom/prison cell.  Lol

Even with 4 months of total free time, I couldn’t get a thing done.  Instead I went golfing, hung out with cousin Kenny, and spent money like I still had a job.  I admit, the whole “getting paid for not working” thing was really not good for me.  Your poor Aunt Steph, she saw the same pattern over and over during our time together.  Make money, spend money, quit job, run out of money, find new job, make money, and on and on…  It was a pattern that I’m sure she still has concerns might happen again in the future.  After 4 months of pretty much stress-free fun, I started to get worried.  It was obvious I wasn’t going to sell my book before the mortgage payment was due on our house next month. 

I hope you learn a lot quicker than Uncle Bill, so you won’t have to go through so much of your life feeling the kind of stress I went through.  Make no mistake, I brought all the stress on myself, and I had zero options left.   I needed someone to save me from feeling so horrible. 

I am literally bawling right now after typing out how stressed I used to be.  I remember that sick stressful feeling so well, that it’s bringing me to tears because I haven’t felt that way in a long time.  Wow.  That is how God works kids!  It’s like a total relief I can’t even begin to explain.  It’s like I can finally breathe now…

Anywho, back to the story.  The party was over, and I gave up.  I brought in the big guns to help me.  I had to do something drastic.  

I need to get up and take a break.   I can’t stop crying thinking about this stuff.  Holy cow, things have changed a lot since those high stress times.  I keep having these flashbacks in my head about what I was thinking back then.  There were a lot of happy times sprinkled in there, but how could you ever really be happy, when your lifelong dreams are being shattered?  It was a tough pill to swallow at the time, and that is why I am getting so emotional about it right now. 

So where were we?  Oh yeah, I started reading the Bible.  I started praying those “please Lord, help me!” prayers with tears and sometimes fist pounding into the pillow or steering wheel of my car.  I needed help getting rid of this pain and disappointment!  So I went to the only option I had left:  God. 

It stinks that sometimes God has to bring people down so low, that they have to look up to Him for help.  I am sure glad He brought me low, because it changed me forever.  

Today was the first time in a long time that I looked at my life right now and said  “it doesn’t get any better than this!”  I try to imagine what it would be like had God decided to keep me at that job another 7 years.  I can feel the stress just thinking about it.  No joke, my heart rate went up and I started getting that feeling in the pit of my stomach again.  At the time, I was so pissed off at the darn president, my family, the company I worked for, and anyone else I could blame.  Now, I can’t imagine it all going down any other way.  I’m doing what I’ve always wanted to, but with God’s twist on it. 

This is how I usually notice God’s work in my life.  It’s almost always when I take the time to reflect back on key events like losing my job and family fight night.  Usually, when you are going through these big life changes, you’re not seeing things clearly.  It is really hard to step back in the moment and ask God what He is doing, and what His purpose for it is.   It takes a lot of practice, but Uncle Bill is much better at it now. 

The moral of the story is that Uncle Bill couldn’t see that God had a plan that was different than his own.  I never could have pictured that I would end up where I am right now.  When God got the guy in the White House elected, I highly doubt He did it just so I would lose my job.  There are a lot of easier ways to get me to leave a place.  But He used the bill that was passed to get what He wanted done:  me out of the job, and secure financially for the time being. 

 I should have never been stressed about a job enough to act the way I did on family fight night.  I never should have let myself get so down when things didn’t turn around right after I was let go.   I should have had more patience.  Nothing ever moves fast enough for me, but God isn’t confined by time like we are.  God is eternal, and outside of time.  His timing in the events of my life was always perfect, because the things I went through and those moments in time, shaped me into who I am today.  Little did I know He had quite a bit more teaching to go…  Stay tuned.  Next chapter I get schooled.