After nearly 5 months of looking for a job (there were a couple of small side jobs in-between) we finally found something. We had looked all over the Birmingham area, but apparently God was taking us back to Auburn. We were not even looking in Auburn, but one afternoon when I was visiting my Grandmother, she handed me a sheet of paper that my cousin had given her about a job opportunity in Auburn. The job was a position in sales and it was not even close to the pay level we needed. But one day when we were visiting Auburn, my husband dropped by to ask about the job. It just so happened that they had another opening in his field with better pay. It was still a cut in pay, and we still had a house we would have to sell, but this was a start in the right direction.
There were many things that God had to pull together to make this job work. For one, my husband would have to find a place to stay in Auburn while we tried to sell the house. After a great deal of prayer, God provided this answer. We continued to work on selling our house. It was an absolutely crazy set of circumstances. Although we were told that we would be paid for our houses in the event the interstate came through, it would keep many of us in this particular area from being able to sell our houses for quite some time. (To this day, 13 years later, this interstate extension has still not happened.)
We were not able to sell our house, but within a few months a friend of mine needed a place to rent for a short period of time. She and her husband had seven children at the time, so finding a place big enough for what they could afford and for just a short period of time was going to be difficult. Although they could not afford to pay all of our mortgage, what they could pay, we were able to put toward a place to rent in Auburn. For that moment, it was an answer to prayer for both of our families.
During this time, my sister-in-law, Kelly, called me every single day to pray over our house. I was so amazed at her faithfulness! She had seen enough to understand the warfare surrounding all of this, and she knew that prayer was our only defense. Within a very short period of time after my friend moved out, we were able to get a lease/purchase contract on the house. We explained to this couple what was going on with the interstate, and they were still interested. After we signed a contract, we even prayed with them over it. I had come to understand how important it is to pray in every situation! The only downside to this was that, until the house was actually sold, we would not able to purchase a house of our own in Auburn. This left us in a small, 3-bedroom rental house for quite some time. Somehow we managed to make it work.
I could most definitely see that God's hand was with us throughout this time. It had been a year since Kaylee had been diagnosed, and she was now able to come off the very strict diet and eat more normally. She no longer had symptoms of any kind! We continued to juice, take supplements and eat a healthy diet, yet we were now able to slowly add more wheat and dairy back into her diet. I was very focused on sharing the good news of what God had done for her with everyone I came in contact with! Although we were still struggling financially due to the consequences of going months without a job and our house not selling, things seemed to be looking up. Our first year back in Auburn went relatively smoothly (once the house was taken care of) .....but then things started to unravel again.
After a little over a year, the company that my husband was working for ran into a major problem. They had a huge contract fall through. Within a few weeks of this happening, they had to downsize and around 22 people were suddenly out of work. My husband was one of these people. We felt like we had been kicked in the stomach again.
Looking for a job in a major city like Birmingham was hard enough, but now that we were back in Auburn it felt almost hopeless. Still, I couldn't believe that God had brought us back here to drop us. I was determined to handle things better this time around! I hung Bible verses up all over my house that contained the promises God gives us about our care and provision. I was in "battle mode." I felt much stronger this time around. Right as our severance pay ran out, we had another job lined up. I truly felt like we had won this "battle" .....but this too was very short lived.
This new job seemed to be doomed almost from the start. The owner of the company was cruel and set unrealistic goals and deadlines, which kept most of his employees at work on weekends, and sometimes literally all night long. Once when the owner was angry, he told my husband that he was going to cut his salary by $20,000 (per yr.) I prayed hard over this, and thankfully it did not happen. Even so, I felt very uneasy about our job stability from day to day. Although we were making it, life became very stressful.
I continued to feel that God was warning me that more hard times were ahead, and just when I thought things could not get worse, I found out I was expecting another baby. At the time, this seemed like the worst thing that could happen. I was a very sick pregnant person, and could barely get out of the bed for the first 5 months. I had wanted to stop at 5 children, and we had planned permanent birth control surgery after our 5th child was born. This had been stopped, however, because the day the surgery was scheduled was the very day that Kaylee had been admitted into the hospital for Crohn's. I remembered thinking at the time that God must have stopped it from happening for a reason. After this, because of Kaylee's health situation, followed by the job loss and loss of health insurance, it just didn't happen.
After 8 months of extreme stress, the owner of the company called half of his employees in his office and told them he was closing the doors. He offered them no severance pay, but handed my husband an application for cobra insurance since he knew we were expecting a baby in two months. He told my husband that he and his family were having a very hard time, and asked if we would be praying for them. (This couple attended church with us at that time also.)
We found out later that he then invited the other half of his employees to his house and told them they were going to try and keep the doors open. I am not sure how he thought he would get away with the two groups not communicating this to one another. Needless to say, the group that was left did not feel very secure about their jobs either, and quickly began to look for work elsewhere. This left several people in the Auburn area looking for work. I am not certain what ever happened to this man or to this company, but I don't think it exists any longer. The entire experience was a nightmare, and my husband was not taking it well.
I did not handle this job loss nearly as well as the second. Perhaps because I was expecting a baby on top of everything else, it was all just very hard to handle. In fact, the day after I received this news, I had a car accident while pulling out of my children's school. I know that this was due to the amount of stress and anxiety I was experiencing.
I really didn't understand what was going on! I was also afraid that I was going to have to go to the Health Department for my remaining prenatal care. I never really understood how anyone could be expected to pay $800 a month for cobra insurance after losing their income. There was just no way that was going to happen. It seemed that things were spiraling out of control, and I was honestly weary. This time there was nothing left to fall back on. Just like that, our income was gone, again.
This was the point when I started to feel a lot of judgment from other Christians. Admittedly, it did not look good for us. Now not only were we out of work; we were out of work and expecting a baby .....with no health insurance. I was certain that people must have thought that we were doing something wrong and that God was trying to teach us a lesson. In fact, I was pretty much informed of this in an indirect way. I was attending a community Bible study at the time, and when I found out that we were out of work again, I called my Bible study leader to ask her to be praying. When I went to my Bible study the next day, she opened up with this scripture: "For the Lord disciplines the ones he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives." Hebrews 12:6 She went on to explain how the hard times we go through are the times we are being disciplined by God. She tried to emphasize that this was a good thing because it meant that God loved us. As she delivered this message, she continued to glance in my direction. I know that she meant well, but it was extremely hard for me to sit through. I knew that everyone in that room knew that it was me who was being "disciplined" and "chastised." I was already feeling extremely weak and vulnerable at this point. Yet, instead of feeling encouraged and hopeful following this Bible study, I left there feeling condemned.
In church I felt very much the same way. A man who had been our Sunday School teacher for several years would later tell me: "When you experience that many job losses, you have to know that it is something that you are doing wrong." I then explained to him how all of these job losses had been the result of company-wide layoffs. He looked surprised and said, "Oh, I didn't realize that." I just thought to myself: That is exactly why we do not need to judge any situation based on our limited information.
I can honestly say that I had never walked closer with God than I had in these two years following Kaylee's recovery from disease. I was on an intimate level with God that I don't believe I have even been on since. I was not perfect by any stretch, but I was trying to live for God in every way. I had just finished a Beth Moore Bible study at my church, and I felt that I was experiencing growth like never before. I was currently attending a community Bible study and getting to know several precious women from a variety of denominations. I was meeting weekly with another group of women to pray for our schools. I was spending more time with God in prayer than I ever had before. My children and I would go every week to visit an elderly woman from our church who was in the nursing home after suffering from a stroke. We would pray with her and encourage her. In addition to this, I was telling everyone the good news about Kaylee! I am not saying these things to "build myself up" or to "pat myself on the back," but rather to help give understanding to how I was feeling when people suggested that I was being "chastised" by God. I had never in my life been more "on fire" for God, yet everything appeared to be going wrong!
On the other hand, I was very aware of my shortcomings. I struggled with worldliness, and I did have many "idols" in my life that I knew I needed to surrender to God. I was also still struggling with many fears over our finances, and I wondered if perhaps these fears had "opened doors" for the enemy to come after me in this area. I knew that I should not be afraid or anxious, but I couldn't seem to control it this time. I would often feel condemnation over this too. I was certain that God was disappointed in me. Yet, if I had stayed in the mindset of believing that it was God who was behind the loss of our job and health insurance, just as with Kaylee's disease, I wouldn't have been able to effectively "battle" the enemy in prayer. I understood that God still had a lot of work to do in me, but I do not believe God would have come after our family's income and our health insurance two months before I was going to deliver a baby to teach me these things. I was not living in direct sin against God! All of this felt much more like an attack from the enemy against our family.
Looking back, I can see things more clearly. One of the reasons that I believe we received so much criticism and judgment from people when we were struggling financially was because of the number of children we had. Also, because I was expecting another baby. Although we were not out of work at the time I became pregnant, it now looked as if we had been very careless and foolish. Nobody was more upset about it than I was! .....Isn't it sad that we would ever view such a wonderful gift from God in this way? The things that the world places value on and calls success are clearly not what God values and esteems. How foolish I was at the time! As it would turn out, my sweet little baby (Ryleigh) was actually my special gift that God was giving me to help me get through these difficult times! My sufferings and my hardships at the moment were only temporary. Yet this LIFE inside of me was everlasting and eternal!
It is easy to lose perspective while in the "cave" or the "pit." After all, you are surrounded by darkness. Today I understand that it is my children who are my most prized and delightful inheritance from God. Some people may look on our life during this time and see failure. I can look back now and see reward and favor. It would continue to get harder and much darker, but God never left my side. He continued to keep me secure in His love and in His unmerited favor.
Sons are a heritage from the LORD,
Children a reward from Him.
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior,
Are sons born in one's youth.
Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame,
When they contend with their enemies in the gate.
Psalms 127:3-5
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