The economy hits home...

After several years of watching Visteon downsize every few months, Dave was downsized himself. On Monday, he was called into a conference room. As soon as Dave saw his manager and a person from HR, he knew. In a few short hours, he had completed the paperwork, cleaned out his desk into a box he had to ask for, and left. He was among the two hundred people who lost their jobs at the company this week.

The first day we were in shock. Intellectually, we understood it and thought we could get through, but emotionally, we were shaken. Today, it seems like it's been forever since he lost his job. We have a plan, and he's been applying to jobs like mad, but the whole situation still seems weird and surreal.

But in all this, we know God is in control. He's given us the grace to have been able to save for a while, and the wisdom to have very little debt. He inspired me in August to start using coupons and learn how to spend less on groceries, which will help us survive if the job hunt lasts for too long. We know that He'll make the jobs available in the place He wants us to go.

The hardest thing is to have patience. As I was driving home from dropping the kids off at preschool yesterday, the radio host was talking about how hard the wait is between the prayer and the answer to the prayer. Each hour, each minute seem to go by so slowly as we wait to see what direction He moves us in next. And this wait might be a long one. Before, when the economy was good, Dave would put his resume on Monster and have five or six phone calls by the end of the day. Now, it's the third day and we still haven't heard anything. So we feel nervous for a moment, then laugh and say, "it's only the third day!"

But there's been good in this as well. We've gotten to spend much more time together and with the kids, which was lacking when Dave had to work long hours at the job. And I feel badly for those who have to pick up all the extra work left at Visteon. People were already coming in early and staying late, so I'm sure that will be even worse now. And it looks likely that we'll need to move, so we'll hopefully end up closer to our families. Overall, our greatest comfort is knowing who's in control.