I have been walking through an intense season of trust over the last year. My husband was laid off from a very well-paying construction job last June. It threw our already troubled finances into a tail spin. On top of all of that, we were in the process of losing our home. We tried for a year in every way imaginable to work with our mortgage company so that we could keep our home. In the end, we had no other choice but to short sale in order to avoid foreclosure. As we sat last week and signed the papers, I did not really feel anything except numbness.
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My mother has given me some great advice over the years. But the one piece that I remember the most—and the piece that I put to use with the most frequency—is something that she probably doesn’t even remember saying at all. It was one of those times when she was trying to console an upset teenager (me!) and attempting to use that segment of time as a teachable moment.
“Sometimes, Staci, you just need to get in the car and go through a drive-thru for a Coke.”
I’m not sure how much stock I put in that nugget of information at the tender age of seventeen, but I do know how wise I’ve come to view those words as I raised my own children and maneuvered through a myriad of life’s complex twists and turns.
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He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. Psalm 1:3 NIV
Faith walked in the door with her arms crossed, and I knew there was a problem. “How was the second day of first grade?” I asked. “Well, we can only have our water bottles at snack time,” Faith complained. “When I come in from outside, I’m so thirsty, and I wanted to use my water bottle, but the teacher told us we could only have them for snack. After playground, we are supposed to use the water fountain instead.”
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