Falling down, looking up!!!

The horror of that moment,” the king went on, “I shall never forget!”

“You will though.” the Queen said, “If you don’t make a memorandum of it.” ~Lewis Carroll

I am awful with dates but I know the basic time frame and the impact on our family and our lives and you may remember this time too. Hugh and I were both in Real Estate and one day the phone just stopped ringing and I mean STOPPED. The first year that we made NO money we thought we could hang on and use our savings and we continued to play a little golf, take a little run on the beach and otherwise enjoy our quiet lives. Heck, we even went to Hawaii, crazy but glad we did looking back. I think we knew when we got back we were having to face the music and better to enjoy our time with friends one last time before it all fell down around us. We thought surely things would look up.

After a few years of a silent phone and the dwindling market, we lost our properties that we had amassed and before we knew it that included our personal property. One by one all that we had worked for and acquired was slipping away. As the last property crumbled we realized that we would not be able to hold on to our home and I did my very first short sale. It would not be my last. More of my friends lost property than bought property around 2007 and 2008. Many of my Realtor friends became waitresses, hostesses and clerks anywhere they could make a buck. Most of them lost property and possessions.
So this is where the story rings true and gives me hope in all things. When we were sitting at the attorney’s office and we were signing the documents on the last of our properties and we were looking at the embarrassing prospect of foreclosures and bankruptcies we turned our eyes up and our hearts on. Hugh and I both agreed, “Well it looks like we have now lost everything we have, but nothing of value.” Yes, we agreed that God had blessed us with health, love, each other and all the things that money will never buy. We still could work enough with new jobs to put a roof over our head and our family was together so our prayers were of thanks and regret was not ours to belabor.

The specifics of all the jobs I did at this time does not matter so much as the enthusiasm and the faith in which Hugh and I went about our lives. WE did not lose sleep. We did not lose hope. WE did not lose our relationship with God, dad as he called him. We only lost material possessions. Those material possessions held nothing for us that our hearts and our minds and our abilities could not replace.ALL THE ABILITIES, ALL THE DRIVE, ALL THE SPIRIT, ALL THE FAITH, ALL THE EDUCATION AND ALL THE GIFTS THAT GOD HAD PROVIDED WERE INTACT. They were more than just intact, they were infused with the desire to appreciate all that we had while working for more. We were not seeking more stuff but more of what God was showing us was important in our lives. We found out a big list of things we could do without.

So here we are today, my sweet husband is no longer here to kneel with me to cry out to our Dad. I do know that Dad is up there watching over us and I believe as I believed before that he has good plans for all of us. That has not changed. The pandemic does not change that. What I know to be true now is that many lives are at stake and yes our economic status is in great jeopardy. But if we all bind together in a spirit of caring for each other and being faithful and look to all the wisdom that is inside of us, we will weather this. As long as we are alive and healthy and can remember that we may fall down a little, but oh how I believe we will get up. We will get up together. There is nothing, no nothing that we can lose of value that can not be earned and worked for again.

I know that when I fall down in life, I am held up with the greatest of peace and surrounded by a hedge of love. I am praying mighty prayers for all of us and I can not help but think my sweet Hugh is up there pulling some strings for our health and our future prosperity.

Loving you with a faith and love that is BIG!!!!

karen