Paying Our Dues: A Testimony, Part 1

"Our praise is based on the goodness of God, not the circumstances in our life."  --Spreadingjoy.com

Recently--as in, the past few months--it's been on my heart to email a friend and tell her how much a few words of wisdom she shared with me really affected me at a time when I really needed them.  They weren't about parenting, even though God was using her in a mighty way to support me through Noah's diagnostic process (having already been through it herself with her own child), housewifery, Christian life, homeschooling or anything else we had in common.  Side Note: I did email her and thank her.

This friend's words, spoken in love, in truth and life, were about paying our dues, and eventually having the life of our dreams.

For the first fifteen years of our marriage, Shawn, Noah, several pets, and eventually, Avery and Ezra, lived in what I can only describe as a hovel.  We actually referred to it as the van down by the river, and frequently broke into that skit when we couldn't handle things anymore.  Chris Farley, if only you knew how much you are missed.  From the beginning, we never really considered it a permanent home, calling it our starter home.  Sure, we were excited to have bought our first house, but we didn't see ourselves there beyond five years.  Throughout those fifteen years, we complained.  A lot.  As God worked on our Christian walk, we complained less, and learned to concentrate more on how He provided.  But I digress.

During those early years, we complained.  We whined.  We moaned.  We hated it.  We couldn't drink the water and had to order our drinking water.  The neighborhood was awful.  Our neighbors, at the time we finally moved, were meth dealers and cookers.  There had been a raid just months prior, involving several federal and state jurisdictions.  We had downright crazy neighbors who had me charged with reckless driving, claiming I was endangering their children, and determined to make our lives as miserable as they possibly could. There's obviously a lot more to that story, but that's what it is--another story.  Eventually it got to the point we couldn't go outside.  We didn't dare go outside.  We found arrows shot into our backyard where our dog played and pottied, so we didn't even dare let her out on her own. The school was--well, eventually the principal and I ended up on a first name basis and it wasn't because we were best friends.  We pulled Noah, enrolled him in private school, eventually he was 'removed' from that school and we homeschooled... You get the idea.  We couldn't run the microwave and any small appliances at the same time, or use the WIFI and the microwave at the same time, lest we blow a circuit.  One year, we went through at least 4 microwaves.  One Christmas, we had to cook and reheat using Sterno because the microwave actually blew on Christmas morning. We couldn't flush the toilet while someone else was showering without scalding that person.  I can't tell you how many times one of us would flush, remember, cringe and yell, "CRAP!  GET OUT FROM UNDER THE WATER!  NOW! NOW! NOW! I AM SO SORRY!"  We drove ancient vehicles for quite a while, too.  You want a good laugh?  The key broke off in the driver's side door of my Camry, and we couldn't afford to have it fixed, so I had to climb through the passenger door, over the passenger seat and gear shift, to get to the driver's seat.  At the time, I taught at a private, well-to-do preschool, and it was humiliating, to say the least.  Shawn and I made poor choices with our money in the hopes of getting our family out of the neighborhood, but when the market tanked, we continued our poor choices hoping to just get Noah out of the schools with the neighborhood kids and avoid putting Avery in at all.  We thought they were smart choices at the time, but they only set us back further.  We laugh at a lot of this now, but at the time--whew.

Remember, during this time, we were also dealing with my health issues, my severe depression and infertility--along with Noah's diagnoses, and a myriad of other things.  We often wonder if Avery's allergies and asthma, and perhaps even Ezra's heart defects, and goodness knows what else, have to do with the chemicals in the air they were exposed to thanks to our neighbors.  We were also dealing with the normal marriage stuff, my parent's divorce, extended family dysfunction (we have to wonder on what planet we live when we're the functional, normal ones???), Shawn's family stuff, and some other "things." Much of what we were dealing with escalated the normal stuff to near nuclear, and our marriage almost didn't make it.

During those first years, we looked around at others our age who were doing well.  They were driving nice vehicles, living in nice homes.  They didn't (seem to) have the struggles we did.  They didn't have crazy neighbors.  They also may not have had the debt we had when we started out, or--they built up debt to get to where they were.  They may have also had parents helping them.  And, many of them were working couples, whereas I chose to be a stay at home mom, making us a single income family.  We just felt screwed, over and over.  If something could go wrong, it would undoubtedly happen to us, not to anyone else.  That's what it felt like, anyway.  Yes, we wallowed.  We wallowed a lot.