Stories...

I shared this photo a few weeks ago in a post about Tim losing his job, again. I remember feeling a bit uneasy about it. Would you all get sick of hearing about our drama and disappointments? Would you all think I'd married someone who was directionless or too fussy or lazy?
Well, your response was overwhelming. Encouraging in the true meaning of the word, to fill with courage.

I was taken out for coffee that evening by a lovely friend who shared her experience of her husband changing careers.
I received an email from another. It was short, a 'thinking of you', but behind it I knew, was another story of months of unemployment, unideal work with weeks away, at great cost to family and health.
I read of a beautifully creative woman coming to terms with a new, unnerving diagnosis here.
Another accepting and finding joy in an unexpected pregnancy here.
Another sharing her amazing and frightening story with a very sick baby here.
Another email turned up in my inbox a couple of weeks ago from someone I'd never met. "I have tons to say, would love an hour to write you..." She wrote briefly about her own season of 'beans and rice' for dinner.

But most precious to me was this letter from my own mum.

"...What you are going through brings back memories of when Dad was off
work for 6 months with his bad back and then he lost his job because the
business went broke. We lost our house, car and we had to pay into the
business to get out, all this without a job... I remember very clearly
standing at the kitchen sink, with tears streaming down my cheeks,
crying out to God asking Him how we were going to survive..."

I remember this story. Dad had fallen from a roof of a house he was building. A beam fell on him. But I hadn't remembered it as a mother with small children. I remembered as a six year old girl. I remembered Dad drinking out of bendy straws. Not the stress or the heartache.

A couple of weeks ago Tim signed another contract at the uni as a research assistant. He also has teaching work lined up when the semester starts back again in 2 weeks. It's taken a while for me to write about it here. I didn't want to have to share another disappointment if something happened. But Tim's home today in his office, working. And I just felt so thankful. Thankful for enough work and money, thankful for a job for Tim in his field, that still gives him time for our volunteer work and family. And I'm thankful for your stories. They have given me courage to live mine and to tell it.