Month in Review - January 2013

Well January 2013 is in the books and things are more of a continuation than a turn around.   God has shown up in some great ways.  Other places we are still questioning what His plan is.

Blessings:

• The chapter of losing our pregnancy is basically closed.  I went through a D and C.  It went really well and I recovered very quickly.  Healing has started, and that is very nice.  Great blessing.
• Even though living with my in-laws is far from desirable it could be so much worse.  We have the family room basically to ourselves except for an hour or two a night or two a week.  They have been very willing to help out as much as they can and all I have to do is make some extra food with dinner each night.
• Little Mr is warming up to them, finally.
• Possibly the biggest blessing this month.  I was able to fix my student loans and bring them to a current status.  The biggest thing we were going to have to accomplish this year to get our mortgage next year.
• I picked up a part-time job in retail.  This is going to help me out immensely!
• It’s a huge blessing that all the stress of this is not tearing our relationship apart.  

Challenges:

• Our job is still not bringing in the sales we need.  We put out over 100 calls this week alone and didn’t schedule 1 appointment.  Hubs went out and meet face to face with several prospects and nothing really materialized from that either.
• Hubs has not been able to find a job that will cover our expenses and starting to feel even pretty defeated.  We know that money is not the answer to happiness, but not having it isn’t the answer either.  We want normality to return and in order for life to be normal we have to be able to pay our bills.
• Little Mister has stopped eating well and isn’t sleeping well.  He is getting up around midnight and can’t fall back asleep on his own.  Over the last week of January he is barely eating.  He is not adjusting well to staying here and cries much more often than he used to.
• Little Miss is bored too often and that is causing behavior challenges of its own.  

Reading:

• Case for Christ, Lee Strobel - book in hand
• Crazy Love, Overwhelmed by a Relentless God, Francis Chan - Kindle

So January 2013 - we were expecting you to be better than you were.  Things are looking up and there is more hope than we had last year.  I have figured out what this season is for and why God had brought it to our lives.  I love it when you are reading along and you get smacked in the face with revelation.

From Crazy Love: "Maybe life is tough right now, and everything feels like a struggle.  God has allowed hard things in your life so you can show the world that your God is great and knowing Him brings peace and joy, even when life is hard."  That is why we are going through this.  To show the world that no matter what happens when you know and love God you will have peace and joy.  That is something we are still learning and working through.

We know that God has a plan for us and we know it is better than any plan that we have for ourselves.  God has made our hunger for His Word stronger during this time.  He is pulling us closer to Him during this season.  We are expecting victory, the mountains will move and we will have more than enough - in God's time.  Right now we will be grateful for the people in our lives helping us get through this season.  We will give thanks for everything that God gives us.  We will lean on and hold tight to God.  He is the only way out.