My Ever Changing Reality

Remember a couple weeks ago when I wrote about Ben losing his job unexpectedly here and about how our reality had just changed in a really big way?

Yesterday my reality changed yet again as my husband was offered and accepted a new job after only 3 weeks of job searching. In addition, it is a job he is excited about and fits him perfectly....almost his dream job. To say that our prayers were answered would be an understatement!

In the short time my husband was without a job I learned some very important lessons:

• When the going gets tough you are both surprised by who reaches out to you and surprised by who does not.  Help came from some very unexpected people who we are so grateful for. I was also very surprised by some people close to us who did not reach out. I think many times the reason for that can be they simply do not know what to say or how to help.
• Sometimes you have to swallow your pride and let people help. Even though  we did not loose any income in the process, people wanted to help us out by buying household supplies, paying for meals and treating us to pizza. At first I had a hard time accepting this, but realized that these people WANTED to help. Helping us out made them feel like they were doing something and accepting the gift with gratitude was far more worthwhile than insisting we did not need it. Ben and I will without a doubt be paying this forward someday.
• Life still happens. Just because Ben and I were nervous and anxious about him not having a job life still goes on. We still had to pay bills, make supper, play with Drake and just do the daily grind like before, it just seems a lot harder with a giant storm cloud over your head.
• Babies are truly healing. I don't know how many times Ben and I looked at each other and just thanked God that we had Drake in our life. Drake made us laugh so hard these past couple of weeks we would almost be crying. We really did try and go on like normal for Drake because he knows when we are upset and that causes him to be upset. That little guy really pulled us through.
• Networking is SO important. Ben actually found his job though a lead on Twitter. Most other job leads that he got came from people we know and not from job sites or companies websites. It really is about who you know.

I realize that we are beyond lucky to have only experienced living life  unemployed for as short of a period of time as we did. We also realize that  Ben getting a job so quickly was nothing short of a miracle and nowhere close to most people's reality.

As we found out, your reality can change for the good or bad  in a blink of an eye. I know our reality will continue to change over the years, but for right now, in this little moment of time,  I'm pretty happy with my reality.