Blessed

On May 1st, I dropped Aaron off at work so I could run some errands. Typical day. About an hour later, he called to tell me he had been laid off.

Just like that.

Novell has been recently acquired and as a result, hundreds of jobs were cut company-wide, with no regard to performance or seniority. Aaron's entire team was slashed. My brother Tom worked in Aaron's department and was also let go with the majority of his team.

Aaron actually took the news pretty well. We were offered a severence to lessen the blow, but suddenly we didn't have medical insurance and I am pretty much a ticking time-bomb of medical expenses right now. If we wanted to keep the coverage we had through Novell it would cost us $1500/month!!! Yeah, OK. I'll go discover the cure for baldness and then I'll sign right up for that.

So I started filling out all kinds of Medicaid applications and seriously considered going home to Canada for the summer to have the baby. We felt like something good was going to come...but after a while that feeling starts to fade.

Then Aaron got an interview for a job that we were sure was the answer to our prayers. His second interview went really well and one of his former collegues just got hired so he was a shoe-in. We started making all kinds of plans and were just waiting for the offer to come.

Then the rug was pulled out from under us when he got a rejection email. Wow, we were really depressed. I have never been wrong about something I was so sure of. It felt like that was our one shot to come out of this thing ahead, and it was gone.

Only two days later though, he got an interview at Henry Schein, a medical supply company whose Utah office deals with software. He got a second interview the following week and we sat on pins and needles for 6 long days while we waited to hear the news. Words cannot express the relief I felt when he got the call offering him the position. This new job is closer, has better hours and significantly better pay than the one we were originally hoping for.

I am still in awe of the hand of the Lord in our lives during this time. We thought we knew what we wanted, we were sure of it. And when we didn't get it, we felt so let down. But now we KNOW it is by the Lord that we are led. I would have never asked for this experience, but I am so completely thankful for it and will rely on it when trials come in the future.

Aaron has been at his new job for about a month now and is really liking it! It is very busy now while he learns the ropes, but he already feels so much more fulfilled than his previous job and sees the potential to advance in the company...which is something he never really saw at Novell. Thank you SO MUCH for the prayers and support from so many of you. We were stressed, but we felt loved. And now we just feel really really blessed.