My Front Row Seat

For the past 15 weeks I have been given a front row seat to the greatest transformation I have ever witnessed - ever!  I am overwhelmed knowing God blessed me, my family and our friends in giving  us a front row seat to His immeasurable love.  Friends, if any of you are reading my blog today and doubt the power of God, then grab a cup of coffee and keep reading. 
I knew I would use my blog to tell our story, I just wasn't quite sure how I'd start it.  I'm still not!  But my dear friend, Mary, told me that my first blog post about our story should be entitled, "My front row seat."  So, here it goes. After working for a good, solid company for 16 years, fifteen weeks ago Mike lost his job.  It came out of nowhere and it was devastating.  One of the many things I've learned through this process is to never say never.  The bottom line is none of us have a crystal ball and my "that will never happen" happened.  But when my "never" hit, I clung tightly to my faith. I accepted Jesus into my heart when I was in junior high.  Some people have great stories as to how Jesus came into their lives but for me He's just always been there.  Sure there were seasons when I didn't pay much attention to what He was telling me or where He was leading me.  There were too many times through the years that I did things my own way but He's always been pivotal in my life, even more so as I became a wife and mother.  However, my husband was not on the same Jesus playing field.  I knew this and accepted this about him when I married him 17 years ago.  Truthfully, I'm ashamed to admit it, his lack of faith didn't matter much to me.  I've been happily married and Mike and I are truly each other's best friends but as the years went by I was bothered by the fact that he rarely went to church with us.  He was in full support of his boys going to church, he just didn't want to take much of a part in it and I realized as the boys got older, I was getting nowhere without a father who would lead them spiritually.  So this isn't really a story about job loss.  The job loss is a small part of the story that had to happen in order to break my husband - in a million pieces.  I'm reminded of a quote by Charles Spurgeon, "Whenever God means to make a man great, He always breaks him in pieces first."  So stay tuned my friends, I promise I'll start blogging more and tell the rest of the story.