Dealing with Bad News

Hi Mom,

Well, the phone call started out, "Hi Betsy, I've got some bad news."  Mark called - it was a Monday at lunchtime.  I was working at Liberty (the long term sub job).  He said he had bad news and then shared how his boss told him he is being let go at the end of February.  YIKES! How will our family survive.  That's a lot of money going to $0 coming in to pay bills, etc.  Knowing me, I came home and made a cost analysis and determined what could go and what had to stay and how much it was going to cost us.  The bottom line was that our current necessary expenses (mortgage, tithing, electric, water, insurance, gasoline, food, Internet) would cost $3500 a month - and that's without health insurance.  Luckily I am bringing in some money and so it wouldn't hurt our savings too much.

More bad news.  One week to the day, the principal calls me into her office and says the lady I am subbing for will not be returning and that she would LOVE to keep me on full time however, the law mandates that a special ed teacher must have "Highly Qualified Certification" to be hired full time.  This is crazy.  I am doing a great job with those kids.  I feel so bad for them.  They've already had their first teacher leave on maternity (no fault), and now I will be leaving (no my choice).  That's the moral problem to the issue, and the personal problem is that I was counting on that money to help make ends-meet.  What are we going to do now.

I am not worried for a few reasons … 1) We have savings.  We'd prefer not to touch it but it is there and we can use it to pay the mortgage and not starve.  2) We have faith.  We know that whatever God gives us we can handle and we know we should learn something from it.  I know we will get through this and it will bring our family closer together.  Already the kids are remembering to turn off lights and not use things that aren't needed.  3)  We are cutting out all unnecessary items - cable, work out, country club, newspaper, etc.  We will live on bare bones until we can find employment.

Faith will see you though anything and everything.