Lemonade, anyone?

Life has handed us some lemons.

Would you like some lemonade?

By nature I am more the "glass if half empty" type. I don't enjoy pessimism, but I've always been more the pessimist.

I am fighting it, though, and holding on to hope that God has good things in store for us.

We found out my husband's company is reorganizing departments, which simply put means there will be cutbacks. There will be 5 positions opening, and 8 people who will have a great need for one of those positions.

My husband is one of those people, and since I stay home with our kids and don't bring in an income, this is a pretty big deal. His position is being eliminated.

Job being eliminated = the lemons.

Here is the hopeful part, the lemonade. 5 new positions are being created, and there is a very good chance he will obtain one of those new positions. God willing.

We will know a lot more over the next 3 weeks. I am praying they fly by and end with good news. Join me in prayer?

I'm trying to make the best of it all over the next few weeks.

For instance, this past Tuesday we had to have our washing machine serviced. Thankfully it was still under warranty, and a very minor problem, at that.

But when I got to thinking about it, this time last year, had this happened, I would have been all lemons. NO lemonade.

We were still renting. We were using our landlord's washing machine. Had this happened before, I would have not only felt stressed from a washer problem, (plus the inconvenience of those crazy service-hour time slots they give), I would have had a lot of added stress because I would have also had to answer to the landlord. I would have felt the stress and need to justify that I didn't break his machine.

Simple things like that. Lemons turned into lemonade. Example 1.

Example 2: it's rained and been gloomy all week. Very icky outside.

It does kind of stink, but then I thought about the rain when we first moved into our house.

We bought this house knowing the roof needed to be replaced. When we had heavy rain after moving in, we had drips. Leaks. I had a husband taking my good towels into the attic to blot out water. Water that is now outside, where it belongs, because we have a good roof over our heads.

It may be a small roof. It may be a roof that only covers 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, and a single car garage. It may be a roof that only covers older appliances, not energy efficient ones, etc. But you know what? It's a dry roof over our own home. Over our own washer, our washer covered by extended warranty that we paid for.

Our roof is solid and dry. It's protecting our four walls, and 4 precious people inside.

I have much to be worried about right now. I have concerns. I am stressed, yes. But who isn't?

I know I have been praying for my husband's job since he started grad school over a year ago.

I've been praying that St. Anthony will help find a job better suited to our needs.

Lemons? No thank you.

I choose to turn those lemons into lemonade. I'm choosing to believe that God will provide, take care of us, and maybe be answering my prayers during this whole thing.

Have some lemonade.