On New Year’s Eve Pablo and I spent some time talking about 2019. Like we like to do with our kids, I asked him about the highs and lows of the year. As we talked through the year together, I realized that our “word of the year” for 2019 could’ve been “unexpected”.
Because 2019 did not go the way we expected, at all.
We didn’t expect Pablo to be out of a regular job for the first two months of the year after a couple months of no income the previous year as well.
We also certainly didn’t expect him to be laid off from his new job in the spring, one month after he was hired. In fact, as we talked about our highs and lows, that day in March when he got laid off stood out as a major low for both of us.
I remember that morning so clearly. I was loading Sofia up in the car to take her for an ultrasound of a lump we’d found, feeling nauseous because I was so worried for her. (Thank God it didn’t turn out to be anything dangerous.) As I was about ready to pull out of the driveway my phone rang – and it was Pablo telling me he’d just been laid off.
That day we really felt like our world was crumbling. And to be completely honest, we wondered why we kept praying since it sure didn’t seem to be making a difference.
But God is faithful, even when we are faithless.
We did not expect that just two weeks after that day, Pablo would be hired and starting work at Milestone, the company he is with now.
(How did that happen? My mom was randomly talking to a neighbor, who happened to mention that the company where her husband worked was hiring. We knew nothing about the company, but Pablo looked it up and applied the same day.)
We were thrilled when Pablo was hired, but we didn’t expect that he’d love the job and the company as much as he does. Or that his boss would be one of the best he’s had. Or that he’d get promoted and be able to provide even better for our family.
It was all unexpected to us, but definitely not to God.
There were other unexpected things in 2019 as well. Pablo and I both started teaching English online with VIPKID (definitely didn’t see that one coming!), my blog became profitable, and God provided a beautiful new home for us to rent that fits our needs so well and is super close to Pablo’s work.
Our takeaway from 2019, our year of the unexpected, is to trust God more, because He’s got things under control, even when we don’t understand what’s happening or know what to do. And sometimes (a lot of times) He says no to what we really really really want because He sees the big picture and knows that something else is going to be a lot better for us in the long run.
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