After Many Months of Trials

I can’t say the last couple years have been easy for me. In fact I have seen myself going from loving my family and being debt free and care free to becoming someone that is not the real me, probably pretty depressed and becoming crazy about the money.  It is hard for me to put into words what has happened these last few years, but I have not been in a great place.  I have never admitted to anyone the toll this took on my emotions and I have never talked about it very openly at all.

I stopped blogging back in July because my husband was studying for the bar, we had lots of debt and no savings to live off of.  We had to make a change and I had to make more money.  So I started to focus on the thing that I could use to bring us in enough money to live until he got done with his test.  I had started to sell Lularoe is June and I was doing a lot of boutiques and was making just enough to get us by.  I just couldn’t keep up with everything and all the pressure.  So I let go of the blog for a bit to help my family get through all this.

My husband took the bar in July and we started the long and painful wait for his results.  In CA you take the test in July but you don’t get any results back until the week of Thanksgiving.  These months were not pretty for us.  I was dealing with a fried husband who had sent the last 3 years studying and testing with the hope that we will make it to the next step, then studying day and night for this test in the hopes that he will make it past and be able to get some income.  I was dealing with the pressure of making enough money to make ends meet and to manage the money.  But the biggest thing I felt was the pressure to balance everything and keep my family taken care of at the same time of doing everything else.

My kids were in a new house, new schools, new life, new everything.  As there mom, I felt it was my responsibility to be sure they got everything the needed emotionally so they could adjust well.  My husband was in burn out mode.  He sat around a lot the first week or so after he finished his test, just vegging.  I didn’t mind at first but after a while I got really tired of seeing him there.  I would voice my frustrations and he would begin to move and help and would do good for a couple days then be fried again.  It took ever ounce of patience I had to not get really angry with him and lash out.  I knew he had felt a lot over these last years but I also knew I had felt a lot too.

I just kept going through the motions and tried to keep my brain from being a ball of mush.  It was a loosing battle for the most part.  I took it a day at a time and learned again to rely on the Lord to make it through.  I didn’t know how it happened, but the day finally came for him to get his bar results.  He had told me a couple days before that he wanted to look at them by himself.  He was really nervous to look so it took some time for him to get in the room and look.  I on the other hand just wanted to get this over with and wanted to know if we were going to continue this crazy cycle or move on to the next piece of our life.  But again I tried to be fair and wait for him to find out before I did…. I felt a little annoyed by that I am not going to lie.  I had gone through every step of this just like he did.  I made sure the house was functioning each day and made sure the kids didn’t kill each other.  I was working to bring in money when he couldn’t do it.  I had worked just as hard as him through all of this.  But I had to put those feelings aside and let him look.

About a minute after he went into our room he came out screaming that he passed running into the front room.  I couldn’t help but sit and cry.  I felt so much relief knowing that that horrible dark time in our life was past and that we could finally move on and begin to dig out.  That limbo phase was horrible and even though he didn’t have a job, the pressure and the fear of what would happen if he didn’t pass was gone.  Just. Like. That.  I began to search facebook and text friends to see if they were also hearing good news.  Then the joy and the fun came to a stand still for a second.  A good friend of mine whose husband had taken the test 5 times got news that he didn’t pass.

At that point I realized that we were being hugely blessed.  This sweet family had been living in So Cal year after year hearing bad news each time he took the test.  They have shown so much faith and so much strength during all this.  You never knew what a hard time she was having and you never knew the feelings of fear and struggle they were having.  They were always so positive and loving and giving.  They still had more to endure.

I began to wonder why we were blessed and not them.  They deserved it so much more then we did.  They had had their trials and endured them well and remained faithful.  Why did they not get blessed and we did?  I didn’t have an answer.  I would have given that moment of joy to her in a second.  Just so she could feel that relief she has hoped for for these many years.  I wished more then anything at that moment that I could have given her husband a pass and we taken the second time testing but there was nothing I could do to help her.  I knew that she was struggling with the same feelings I had had these last few months.  If only I could take them away.

Over the next 3 weeks we did the needed things for Matthew to get a job.  He was sworn in, he got his bar number and he began looking for a job in the new options he had since he passed.  He had his first interview and had one other scheduled.  Before he could get to the second interview he got a call from the firm who interviewed him first.  They offered him a job.  I was so happy, but scared s this ment we had to face reality and the hole we dug these last 3 years.

As I begin to reflect on our last 3 years, I can’t tell you how real the fear is and the struggle.  I hope that through my story you can feel those feelings and understand how to better cope with these times then I did.  It wasn’t pretty.  But I had gotten through it and so can each one of you.  There are lessons I have had to learn and am still learning each day.  I ran from the feelings rather then letting myself be real and feel them.  And even though I wasn’t the best servant of the Lord, he still saw us fit to be blessed.  I think at times he probably knew I couldn’t take much more, but whatever His reason was, I am grateful for the blessing and hope we can bless others with our story and be better servants in the future.

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