Marriage Monday

The year 2000 found my family living in a run-down, single-wide trailer. My job at the time had left me depressed and depleted, leaving little energy at the end of the day to spare for my husband and children, who were only one and three at the time. The stress had gotten so bad at work that my hair was falling out. In desperation, I turned in my two week notice and frantically began looking for other work. It was mid-January, the weather was frigid and money was in short supply. To say we were struggling would not be an exaggeration. My husband startled me awake one morning after he noticed that our home was so cold that we could see our breath. Panicked, we rushed to the children's' room to check on them. They were fine, if a bit confused as to why mom and dad were waking them up so abruptly. The furnace had shut off sometime during the night, and since our oil tank was perpetually low, we assumed that the oil had run out. While my husband called for an emergency delivery, I bundled my daughter and my son up in the car and headed for my parents' house nearby. More oil did not fix the problem. The furnace was irreparably broken and it was decided that the trailer was too old to warrant replacing it with a new one (we did not own the trailer). Within two hours, we were left without a place of our own to live and I sat crying on the floor in my mother's kitchen, in complete disbelief that this had happened to us.

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We moved temporarily to my parents' house, while we looked for a job for me, a place to live and some reassurance that God had not forgotten about us. I'm sure that, in anger, I lashed out at my husband. He, on the other hand, was regretting our decision for me to leave my job without having a new one in place. Both of us felt powerless and hopeless.

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And then God made it obvious that he had been there all along.

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You see, in talking with a co-worker while I was still employed, I had discussed the dismal condition of our home and how much I wished that we could make things better for our family. The co-worker had just moved into a new house and out of the house his family had rented. He very kindly wrote down the phone number of his former landlord for me and I promptly deposited it into the depths of my purse - TWO MONTHS BEFORE THE FURNACE DIED. During that time, I never once thought about that little scrap of paper. I spent hours scouring the newspaper, looking for apartments and jobs. Nothing worked out. Two apartment visits were disastrous. While looking for a pen, I came across that phone number and, even though we were positive we could not afford it, I called the landlord. Turns out, he was my father's former supervisor and was only too happy to show us the house. House! It was beautiful, and perfect for us. The kind landlord waived the security deposit and arranged it so we could move in immediately. We lived there for two years until we bought a home of our own.

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Oh, and the job? God had that covered, too. I received a call for an interview while we were in the midst of moving. I was hired on the spot and I've been there ever since.

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So sorry about the long post, but since the theme this month was about rough patches in marriage, this was what came to mind. As for suggestions to get through it - apply prayer directly to the problem. Repeat as needed!