2010 in Review

I think every year, I have sent out a letter along with our Christmas card. Not this year though, for a few reasons. But after notifying friends and family of our new address, I received a few quizzical responses as to why we moved, so I thought I'd catch you up on what happened to us in 2010.


The arrival of baby Connor on 12/23/09 was the biggest blessing of our lives. We certainly started 2010 on a very happy and hopeful note. We had saved and cut corners for 5 years to allow me to stay at home with our baby. In February I quit my job as a supervisor. Then in March, Nick lost his job. At the time we thought it was a blessing in disguise. Nick was unhappy at his job so we believed God had something better for him. We spent a long 8 months job searching and trying to survive. It was extremely difficult on both of us. We trust God still has a plan, but so far we haven't seen what that "better" something is. :)

I could write a novel about that 8 months of fear and anguish and helplessness. Without Connor lighting up our life, I could easily label it as a total nightmare. Never have I felt so hopeless. I still do not understand God's timing, but I do give God all the credit for keeping our family together.

In the summer, we were blessed by both our sets of parents to take trips to California to introduce Connor to extended family. That was a lot of fun and such a blessing for me to take a break and try to forget about our crazy life back home. I will always be grateful that our families got to meet Connor while he was still a little baby.

We decided back in September (I think) to sell our house. We put it up as a short sale to avoid going into foreclosure. We got a cash offer fairly quickly and had to decide where to go once the house was out of our hands. Nick decided to go to my parents and suggested getting a rental house together. In November, Nick landed a new job. We were grateful, even though it didn't pay enough to help us keep our house. So, we moved in December into a big rental house with my mom and dad and Nick is learning his new job and we are all just trying to hang in there and get by. Connor loves the new house, a place he can run and play and explore. He also loves seeing us much of his grandparents and all the new animals (my parents have a dog, a bird and a turtle to add to the zoo of two cats and bunny). :)

We were very blessed to have had so much help from family, and I feel extremely grateful to live in America where programs like WIC are so easily accessible to people in our situation. I am thankful for a year of good health, a year when we had no health insurance. Even baby Connor was a picture of perfect health his first year of life. Our chiropractor took excellent care of us and we all got by without even a tiny cold.

I am still hoping for answers from God, a revelation that will put my mind at total ease with understanding why God allowed my world to fall apart right after the birth of a long-awaited, much-prayed-for baby. Why?! It makes no sense to my puny human brain right now. I fear that perhaps there will never be an answer. I am still wounded, still confused as to why this happened after so much hard work, so many years of service in a Christian mission. Oh believe me, I know God doesn't give a hoot about us having money or our own house or a better car. I know God uses difficult circumstances to shape our character.

It does sort of make you wonder why it's worth even bothering to do the "right thing" though. Why do we work hard to pay off debt, make responsible choices, earn college degrees, when so far nothing seems to come of it? It is frustrating! But because I am still a child of God and have to believe He cares and loves me, even if I don't always feel it, a part of me is still hopeful for life to improve someday.

So, here we are.

I have spent the last couple of weeks thinking about New Year's resolutions. This post was difficult to write because my mind can hardly bear thinking of what happened to us last year. One day, I still hope we can look back and see clearly why this happened. For now, I want to look back at 2010 as the year I learned to be a mom. The year I fell in love with a tiny redheaded bundle of joy. The year I heard the words "It's a boy!"...something I had dreamed about for years. My baby's first smile. Becoming fiercely devoted to breastfeeding and organic baby food making. :) I learned that I can do much more than I ever imagined. We adore our son beyond belief.

I want 2011 to be a better year for us. Sometimes, when life really falls apart and you have to start over from scratch, it can be a good thing. We have goals to make and start working towards. I think of something new to add to my resolutions list almost every day! :) It may get out of control, so I need to just get it down on paper and start living a better life.

In closing, I want to ask forgiveness to those friends who had no idea any of this took place last year. I know perhaps I ought to have shared more, asked for more prayers, but it was tough to share what happened in detail. Humiliating and depressing. I hope you can understand and if you'd like to pray for our family going forward, it would be such a blessing to us.

We survived. My family is together and we are all healthy and we love each other. We have a lot of healing and growing to do, but God is good, all the time.