Seeing the Rainbow
From Chicken Soup for the Soul: Tough Times, Tough People
By Ashley Sanders
The only way to see a rainbow is to look through the rain. When my husband’s deployment orders ended in 2007, our small family found itself without a job for the very first time -- and with a very new baby. We put out resumés and my husband applied to every possible place he could think of, regardless of locale. He took a job across the state -- more than four hours away -- and we began making preparations. We cleaned our home in record time and virtually lived out of suitcases as the “For Sale” signs were pounded into our lawn. We tried to leave no trace of living in our home because we knew that at any moment we could be asked to leave for showings. We said goodbye to our friends and family, and prepared for more heartache and distance. We were leaving our entire family behind. Then something magical happened -- our prayers were answered, and in the nick of time! We had another job offer! And it was local. We wouldn’t have to move after all! Everything seemed perfect, like it was all falling into place. With great enthusiasm, we uprooted the real estate signs and began planning our life again. P1 | This new job paid much less than the previous job, but we had enough in savings to last until the raise he’d been promised came. Things were going to be just fine! Until they weren’t, of course. Within months, our savings were depleted and things had changed in the company. The money we’d been holding out for was no longer something we could count on. With a slow job market, we began to prepare as things began to get worse. My husband and I pored over our finances and marked off anything we could live without, including our home phone and television service. Despite the cuts, finances were still extremely tight. So, we borrowed some tools and planted a small garden in our backyard. We planted the vegetables we knew we would no longer be able to afford at a supermarket. We began looking to trade our services for other goods or services we might need. |
P3. Everything seemed to be spiraling downhill quickly -- and then our insurance stopped. I researched natural alternatives, things I could grow in our garden or find in nature, to alleviate our smaller medical troubles. It felt as if Murphy’s Law had swooped down on us and everything that could go wrong was going wrong. We continued sending our prayers up, hoping for a break somewhere along the way, hoping we’d find a way to pay the electricity before they came to cut it off again. As the days passed, nothing seemed to change. We were barely getting by. But as my hands dug into the rich soil, uncovering the rooted vegetables as they peeked through, I knew there was something different. I watched as my daughter, who had just learned to walk, tottered down the rows of our family garden and stooped over a bucket to fill it with lettuce leaves, and I smiled. Indeed, nothing on the outside had changed. But it was because God was changing us on the inside first. What at first seemed like a tragedy for our family turned out to be what forced us to change for the better. Sure, we no longer had television service, but instead we cuddled together by the campfire in the backyard or we chased bubbles on the patio. We could no longer afford to go out to eat with our friends or to the movies, but now we spent our time hiking together and exploring the local parks. We were no longer cooking quick frozen meals. Instead, we were eating carefully prepared, healthy meals with fresh vegetables from a garden. A garden that taught two adults who thought they knew it all and a little girl who found even the worms and ants exciting. We had prayed for change, and change is what we got. It just took us a little more time to recognize the blessings bestowed upon us. We just needed a little more faith to see the rainbows through all the rain.
留言列表
