Faith In The Future

I've had one of those endless colds this week and haven't accomplished much of tangible worth. Me and my house are a wreck, but I have hugged my children more and done a lot of pondering.

Fred came home on Monday with all of the benefits paperwork to fill out for Stevens-Henager, and we quickly realized that they were lacking. Because we have never really been in the professional job market before, we were only looking at the salary when we considered this new opportunity and had never really thought insurance could make that significant of a difference. We became concerned and spent the entire day crunching numbers and came to the horrifying conclusion that with the raise Fred received from the hospital only 3 days before and the semi-annual bonus that came with it, and the difference we would be paying in health insurance, Fred would actually be bringing in significantly less, not minimally more as we had previously thought.

We had enjoyed such good, peaceful affirmation to move forward with this decision and now we were feeling much confusion. We were starting to doubt our answers to prayer and then began wondering if the confusion we were feeling was the real answer to prayer and we had just wanted our previous feelings to be right. We still felt like the opportunity was enormous, but Fred couldn't see how he could shoulder the additional responsibility load and be worrying about our financial obligations even more than before. From conversations that Fred had with the director, we knew that Stevens-Henagar couldn't offer him more, but in these few short weeks Fred had gained such a respect for the staff that he felt he needed to call and express his concerns and see if they could help get some concrete information on advancement time lines and potential for the future. They did, but more than that they expressed their confidence in his abilities and in his character and when he came out of that room I saw a more humbled man, once again at peace with a decision that we had already made, and just looking at his face I instantly felt peace again as well.

Sometimes I let immediate worldy concerns overshadow my faith in the future. I know these first few months are going to be difficult for us. I think Fred will be pushed to stretch capacities he doesn't even know he has and we may feel like we are once again on a student budget, two things which are never fun to pair together, but because we had great dreams to go on a family vacation to New York we do have some money saved up to see us through. And though that vacation may have to wait longer than we wanted, I know the sacrifices we made to save will still be a blessing to us. It will be a good lesson for our family in frugality, a thing which we haven't been as good at as I know we can be. I always enjoy a good challenge, especially when I can see a light at the end of the tunnel :-). It's the pitch dark tunnels I'm terrified of.

I know Heavenly Father cares about our smallest concerns and he is holding our hands. Sometimes I forget to be humble and think that I am too mature to hold hands with a parent, but my "independant" plans are always embarrasingly juvenile and motivate me to cling once more to someone who knows me better than I know myself.