First of all, I feel that we were incredibly blessed to be a part of Inflammable. Nate was given an opportunity early on in the company to learn as he worked, which is not something he would likely have been able to do working for any other company in the IT field. We are so thankful to God and to my brother, especially, for giving this opportunity to us. I know Nate worked very hard to earn the trust they placed in him, and knowing him, I have to believe he earned it. People who know Nate and have worked with him know that he is a very hard worker. I'm beyond proud of him.
The unfortunate flip-side of the blessing of Nate learning as he worked is this: the knowledge Nate has is so very specialized, he is not as hire-able or employable as we would like. If you are not familiar with the field of IT, this means that he is extremely well-versed in one small area of the field and his knowledge of the rest is rather limited. It's like a high school physics teacher being asked to teach fourth grade. He just isn't qualified to do that. He can freaking "teach physics" but if there is nobody looking to hire a "physics teacher" and everyone wants a "fourth grade teacher", he just isn't super employable right now. So, in a way, we are back at square one when it comes to applying for new jobs. All is not hopeless, though, and I fully believe good will come of this. The last two years have not been in vain, and God will use this situation to his glory. Who knows? Maybe he will be rehired again in a few weeks and all of this will have been a giant uncertain vacation from work. Or maybe this is the beginning of a long arduous period of patience and trust. We shall see.
Secondly, to continue answering the "how are you doing" question, we are learning a lot about trust. This element is seemingly more complex than we initially expected. Like I mentioned in my previous post, the reasons for the closing of the company are a combination of things we know and can't talk about as well as a great many things we don't know about. That being said, it's understandable that there is an element of trusting in the unknown decisions of others, which we are learning is an incredibly difficult position to be put in. That's where we are right now. It's complex because we do trust the leadership of Inflammable, very much. If we didn't fully trust them and God, we would be much more angry and would definitely be feeling bitterness in the wake of this tragedy. We do not blame them at all nor do we feel bitterness, but we still are feeling grief and hurt. The hurt was inadvertent, of course, but it was still hurt.
I imagine it's like being a passenger on a car (well, more likely a bus with 30 other passengers) that is involved in a collision with another vehicle. You aren't driving the bus or making the decisions. You probably are minding your own business and not paying attention to the bad decisions of the cars around you. When the bus you are in gets hit and totaled and you wind up injured and in the hospital, you are still hurt, even though you knew the bus driver personally and trusted him to give you safe passage. In this instance, the driver came out of the crash with minor personal injuries, but had to deal with the loss of their property, the insurance claims, the emotional trauma of being responsible for a great many other lives, and the heartache of the injury to the passengers in the bus accident that he didn't cause but still feels responsible for. But we, as the injured passengers, have a road of recovery ahead of us. We placed our trust in an employer, just like anyone does at any job, and when it closed, that trust was broken and that left us feeling hurt. So these past few days, that injury hurts. It just does. We know that wound will heal, but right now, it just hurts. And that's okay.
Thirdly and lastly (for now), we are learning about thankfulness. Every year for the past several years, I participated in the 30 Days of Thankfulness posts on Facebook. I will likely sound like a hipster when I say I was doing it before it was cool, but since my college friends and I really did have Facebook accounts before it was cool, I guess it's okay. :) Anyway, I once heard the quote that there is always something to be thankful for, and we are learning one day at a time, what that means for us right now.
We have said over and over that we are thankful for God bringing Dave Ramsey and FPU into our lives at a time when we had hit a financial rock bottom and were receptive to it. But I am also thankful for a
We are also thankful for this time we have been given to be together. With all of my whining and complaining over the past few years about being apart while Nate traveled and then again while he worked nights, I never would have wished for a job lay off just so that we could have more time together. But sometimes, you've got to roll with the punches. And we're trying to do just that by enjoying the quality time. My top love language is quality time (my second, if you are curious, is words of affirmation). So I'm getting a rather heavy dose of quality time all at once. We had some Groupon credit at a local movie theater, so today we took advantage of that and went to see The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. I'm soooo glad we saved that credit because there is no way we would spend any of our precious money to go see a movie right now, and it was just what the doctor ordered. I know it hasn't received the best reviews, but I loved it. Legolas is my favorite Lord of the Rings character, though I do really like all of the characters, and he had a larger part in this movie than he did in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I would totally recommend it so long as you know they added filler because they had too much content for two movies but not enough for three. Also, the end is kind of a cliffhanger, and we have to wait a whole year to see the resolution. So you need to keep that in mind. Anyway, it was a welcome distraction from this past week of stress.
Another thing for which we are thankful actually hits on the aforementioned integrity of the leadership of Inflammable, and that is that when Nate received his final paycheck, they paid him for the rest of his paid vacation days that he was going to be taking next week. We never in a million years expected them to do that, even though to some that might have been a given, and we are overwhelmed beyond measure and filled with gratitude for that extra almost two weeks worth of hours we never would have expected them to pay him for.
In closing, this last week has been filled with waves of stress and calm, but I have to be honest and say the last two days have been the hardest. Just like with any situation that requires grief and healing, we have gone through periods of frustration, stress, anger, peace, sadness, feeling sick, etc. Nate and I aren't alone in this, yet we are in a unique situation. We would love for you to continue to keep us in your prayers.
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