It’s Friday, the end of a crazy week, but that doesn’t really make me feel better because I know next week is scheduled to be even crazier.  But for now, the kids are playing quite nicely upstairs, and I have a few moments of quiet, which in itself is something to be thankful for.

But I would also like to spend these few moments practicing thankfulness for something else, Jason’s job.  6 years ago we moved to Louisville for Jason to take a full-time youth pastor position.  It was actually a pay cut for him, but I had just recently started working full-time (with benefits) at  J C Penney (I had just completed my Associate’s degree and was planning on finishing school at U of L after we got settled into the new house), and our housing and utilities were completely covered by the church, so all would be fine.  But…2 weeks after we moved we found out that I was pregnant.  We hadn’t exactly been trying, and had actually just decided that we needed to wait a little longer before we did have a baby, but that didn’t change how incredibly happy and thrilled we were.

But it did come at a price, for I became so sick (I’d like to emphasize that sick is really an understatement here — I was so much more than just sick, but for lack of a better word, sick will suffice.) that I was no longer able to work.  So we lost our health insurance and had even less money to live on every month, and with a baby on the way.  As hard as it was though, we were always taken care of.  (I could write a whole other blog on the miraculous provision of God during that time, but it will have to wait for another time.)

So Judah was born, and although we were living a modest life, we couldn’t have been happier.  Judah was 6 months old when we discovered that I was pregnant with Arabella — another surprise, but such a good one.  We were tickled pink (literally pink) that we were gonna have another bundle of joy, but it was right about the same time that the church had decided to make Jason’s position part-time and not pay him a salary anymore.  Our housing would still be provided, but Jason now had to find another job.  This led to him going back to school to get an IT degree, which I have to admit, I fought him about this.  With a 6 month old baby, and another one on the way, I did not want the kind of life where he would work 40 hours a week and then spend even more time on school, and have very little time and energy left for his family.  We had many serious conversations about it, but ultimately I gave in and stopped trying to convince him not to do it.  I honestly didn’t believe it was the best decision, but I saw how determined he was so I tried my best to support him.  I just want to state, for the record, I couldn’t have been more wrong.  Jason was right, and I was wrong.

I don’t know where we would be, if he hadn’t made the decision to go back to school, for over the course of 6 weeks, he put in his application and submitted his resume to so many places, tirelessly, and never heard anything.  Weeks went by, and we began to wonder what on earth we were gonna do.  One night Jason was talking with one of his new classmates in the course he had just signed up for, and his instructor heard how he was needing a job and spoke up, “You need a job?  I’ll give you a job.”  And just like that, Jason had the exact job in the career field he was wanting.  It was what he was going back to school for.  Jason’s two instructors, that were co-teaching his classes, had started their own software development company, and they hired him to come and work with them, before he had completed his first month of school!  So while he was going to school for software development, he was getting to work, with pay, and get on the job training as well.  Oh, and he got to, and still does, work from home.  So our family life didn’t suffer at all.  It really seemed too good to be true, but we know God really is that good.

So Jason has been with his company for 4 years now, and I have no question that he is where God has placed him.  It is the greatest company to work for.  His 2 bosses, that started out as his instructors, have not only been so good to him career-wise, they have been good friends to our family as well.  They are truly great people with great families.  And over the past 4 years, God has really blessed the company expanded it with even more great people.

Just one more thing I’m thankful for in regards to Jason’s work…God has also opened the door at Sullivan University so that he is now the instructor for the same courses he had taken just a few short year before — another HUGE blessing.  All of this has provided the way for me to be able to stay at home and raise our kids, and to do home school (2 very important dreams of mine), and to do it all in the house of our dreams.  Last thanksgiving, we got to move into our very first home, and it’s exactly what we wanted in every way.  Now, you won’t see our house on HGTV as a million dollar home, but it really is our dream home.  It met everything on our wish list, even the things that we really weren’t expecting to get, and then some extras that we weren’t even considering.  And just for some fun facts…our gray-siding house was built in 2004, the year Jason and I were married.  Also, Graham means “from the gray home.”

So, I am thankful for the amazing provision of God, I’m thankful for his incredible plans for our lives and the desire He gives us to follow them, and I’m thankful for the amazing man that Jason is and how hard he works.  And I’m incredibly thankful that he did not give in and listen to me…that one time.