Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Little blessings

Although 2009 has been a bit stressful in regards to employment, it's turned out to be somewhat of a blessing. For most of the year Mark did a lot of stressing and complaining about his job with the Village of Oswego. Their Village Board Members have a lot to be desired. It was getting tiresome and I worried about Mark's stress levels in relation to his health. Then at the end of summer they parted ways, unexpectedly. This brought on some new challenges to our household, but it made us all a bit closer and more conscious of the cost of things, not only financially but personally, made us realize the real friends and supporters in our lives. So many of our family members, friends and neighbors stepped up and asked if we needed anything to let them know. Others did things without even asking. Mark became more connected with our kids and at a preteen level, to me this was big!

During this time, we discovered several of our friends were going through true crisis with their health. We've prayed for them and tried to be supportive as much as we could. This made the old saying "Life ain't nothing if you don't have your health" a true reality. So we couldn't go out to dinner as often as we did before, or we would really have to wait to get that new CD you wanted. Boo hoo on us... our friends were looking at the reality that life does end. (You would think we already learned that lesson since my father died 26 years ago yesterday).
Again, making us closer. Thank goodness our friends seem to be on the mend. We still pray for Mark's cousin Sally who battles with bone cancer.

For us, after several weeks of job searching, Mark got an offer to work contractually with the City of Evanston. Although it's a trek - 1.5 hrs each way daily. It's a job in a field my husband loves. Mark will continue to work with them until the contract ends or until he finds a permanent position. We've been blessed to have each other, our health and will enjoy a joyous holiday. Sometimes these little blessings are actually miracles, but only time will tell. For now, I'm enjoying the holidays with my family and hope you do to. Merry Christmas!