finding joy

It seemed as if everything in my life was going wrong

- CHRISTINA JOBES

WHAT ARE WE going to do?” I asked my husband, Shawn, for what felt like the thousandth time. Since moving to Pennsylvania from New Jersey it seemed as if everything had gone wrong. I had lost my job, and there was even worse news: Shawn’s union was going on strike. Until management at his company agreed to a contract the union could approve of, Shawn was no longer a support analyst. “How are we going to live on no income?”

“We still have some savings,” Shawn said.

But not much. We’d used most of it to buy our new house, and now we were paying a mortgage. On top of everything else I was pregnant with our first child.

Shawn received a schedule for picketing every week. With him out of the house, I had a lot of time to worry about what an extended strike would mean for our family. “Our savings won’t cover the mortgage for long,” I told my mother over the phone. “We could lose our house.”

“God will provide,” Mom assured me. “Ellie’s here, and we’ll start praying right away.”