Surviving the Real World

It's Saturday and I just got back from helping my husband move personal things out of his office. This week he lost his job. He did NOT lose his paycheck. But everything he has worked for and done for almost the last 8 years has been taken away. They moved him out to Oregon, we bought a house and less than 2 years later, they are telling him that he has to move again in a year. Personally, I just want to SLAP someone. He is not the only one who got the short end of the stick...but I am pretty sure he did get the shortest stick. Again.

When I am able to look past the fear and anger of the situation, I KNOW God can work this in to yet another amazing chapter in our book. But we are, of course, in the "pause" of it all...wondering how and IF God is going to work this out...and by "if" I guess I mean is God going to work it out the way we think it should work out. It's funny how we like to fool ourselves in to feeling like we are in control of ANY situation. I know I'm not in control. And I know. God can do ANYTHING. But right now I don't have a clue what is going to happen. And I guess I find it more tolerable to THINK I know what is going on than to walk around in a daze knowing I don't.

Tom could write a book. I've already come up with a title. 'How to Survive Your Employer Sucking the Life Out of You - One Breath at a Time." In the middle of last year, they made Tom move his office. He went from a nice windowed view to a small windowless office. Then one of his hourly employees quit (actually she transferred to a different job working for a friend in the same company) and for SOME reason, in doing that, she created a HUGE problem between Tom's boss and his boss's boss. They actually, literally yelled at him for over an hour for letting her take another job. Working for her former boss and personal friend. I'm not sure how Tom could have changed that or why he would even want to. She was a good employee...and good at what she did, but she was an hourly employee that Tom had NO control over her hourly pay...his boss did. But somehow, it was Tom's fault. There have been other things but this one was the one that started to make Tom not feel the love anymore... And then this week happened. His boss lost his job and so did his boss's boss. They split the division that Tom was a manager of, took away all of his employees, gave them and his job to some one who has worked there for less than 6 months AND...put Tom under the one person in that division that has caused him problems for years. OUCH.

Tom came home from work the day after this news hit him and Zach said, "Did you quit?" Oh, Zachy...you can't DO that in the real world. There are house payments and car payments and bills and... So, after the initial shock of the week has sunk in and we have realized that we would have to pay back our 1st time homeowners $8k incentive because we haven't lived here for 3 years and, oh yeah, we bought a $180k house in a dead market in a town with a higher than the national average rate of unemployment. Not to mention the prices of housing plummeting. Except in Portland...where they want us to move. There is NO way we can pay back 8k, sell our house we've had for less than 2 years (at best for a profit and at worse...at all!) and move to Portland. And, oh yeah- we don't WANT to, either! We JUST got settled here!

Tonight, after hitting a wall at his work and yelling that I hate what they did to my husband, I realized something. WHY do we expect light from darkness? Yes, the did him wrong. Why would that surprise me? I SO want Tom to get treated with the same integrity that he treats others with...but he never is. They aren't Tom and they don't play by God's rules. WHY do we expect light from darkness?

So I pause and I try to make some God sense out of it. We really felt, that as hard as it was to leave Illinois, it was what God wanted us to do. Our biggest fear was getting out her and Tom losing his job because there aren't many other jobs around here...well, that has sort of happened. He hasn't physically lost his job...but he sure has lost the desire to work there. But we started talking. If God wanted us out here, in this place...how else could we get here? Tom's employer is one of the top 3 employers in this town. The school and the hospital are the other two. He has no medical background and he doesn't have teaching credentials so...it isn't like anything other than his company would have ever gotten us out here. There would be NO other way we would have come. We wouldn't look here for a job...it wasn't part of OUR plan. So, I think God is up to something. I'd love to know what, but...He isn't sharing just yet. So I have to do one of those things that do NOT come easily. I have to trust God knows better than I do. And you know what bugs me the most about that? That it doesn't come easily for me. God is the only one who has never let me down...so why can't I just let go of all that junk I keep mulling over in my mind and trust Him?

Well, I'm working on it....

The mind of a 14 year old...

I just spent an hour chatting with Tyler about Ukraine. He was mostly waxing poetic about his childhood...he spoke of everything from wondering if his Ukrainian grandmother was still alive to catching spiders with twine and gum. My thoughts switched back and forth from "I hope he always remembers these things" to "Is he just trying to stay up later and knows I'm a sucker for him recalling his days in Ukraine?"

I was able to tell him the totally God-woven timeline of their adoption and how they were only available for about 10 days when we got there and how within 7 days of us getting there, the government changed the rules to only being able to adopt kids 10 years or older (they were 7 & 8 at the time). Everything worked out within a very tight time frame for us to get them 0 and of course, God worked it out perfectly. Including the part that IF his grandmother had contacted the orphanage within the year they were there, they would NOT have been available for adoption. He said "Yeah, she probably knew she couldn't take care of us." Yes, and because she knew she couldn't, she didn't contact the orphanage. One of the first things Tyler ever communicated to us in English was that the ONLY person is all of Ukraine that ever loved him was his grandmother. I think of her often (she is probably in her 50s and is most likely still alive).

While I know his true past and many of the horrid things that happened to him, to hear him, you'd think he had the most wonderful childhood. The details about the games he played and the people who were his friends and were not his friends and the things they did...they all sound like something I imagine out of the 50s - you know...back when the government didn't protect us from sharp objects and the unsafe world. The fact is, childhood in Ukraine, in general, IS much more dangerous that our cotton-padded America. I know there are places in the US that aren't all safe and cozy, but MY world, and now our boys world, is fairly well-wrapped in a blanket of safety. Listening to Tyler talk about the projectiles they made (and shot at each other), the cement jungles they wrestled on, the thorny woods they tripped each other in and the playground full of really tall and dangerous metal toys they ran around and flew off of...it was like it was any boys dream. At one point he even stopped and paused. I asked him, "Does it seem like forever ago?" He replied, "Yeah. I miss it."

He misses it. I sit here and think about that. What is it that he misses? Having a mother who abused him? Or living in an orphanage and having NO parents? Does he miss not getting enough to eat? Does he miss living in a room full of same-aged children with dirty clothes and no showers? WHAT is there to miss? It didn't make me angry...it just made me think.

I know what he misses - he misses being a child! In all of his 14 years, Ukraine represents a time that was tough, yes...but it was also a time of freedom. Of not thinking about "Will this hurt?" but instead thinking "MAN! THAT HURT!" and of just picking himself up and brushing himself off and going to the next big adventure. Because if there is one thing you have when you have a mother who doesn't really care...or you live in an orphanage that is outnumbered on the kids to adults ration...one thing you most certainly have - is FREEDOM. Even if you aren't allowed to go there or do that...you DO go there and you DO go and do that. Because you have to get CAUGHT before you get in trouble! And it is worth it to try because chances are, you'll get away with it. And if you DO get caught, what can they do to you? Hurt you worse than you've already been hurt by your own mother? Unlikely. Plus, like most young boys, Tyler was invincible. To a certain extent, he still is...you know there is a reason common sense doesn't kick in for the male until they are in their 20s...it would really compromise their fearless invincibility!

I remember Tyler's first and longest-held complaint of becoming an American. "TOO MANY RULES!" He felt his youthful care-freeness being sucked out of him within a month of landing. It wasn't just school, it was family, too. I remember Tyler AND Zach saying to us "Brush our teethe??? EVERY day???" Followed quickly by showers or baths...EVERY day. and school...ALL day. No four hour break in the middle for quiet time (which I think was really teacher and orphanage worker four hour sanity time...). So much structure. If you think about it, how foreign was that for them? But I also remember him running to me EVERY time he got a little scratch! I would look at him and say "How can you be hurt by this? When we got you, you were covered with bruises and cuts and scrapes and NOTHING hurt you!" He consistently looked at me and said "Yes, but no one cared about me then...now I have you!" How can you find fault or argue with that?

I asked Tyler about how much fun he USED to have doing simple things. And how much time he spent outside playing WITHOUT all kinds of toys and accessories. He made toys out of ink pens and sticks and held on to single marbles because they were great and wonderful and bounced if you threw them down the hall. He said "Yeah, and now I don't want to stay outside for anything...and now I have all the video games and TV and my iPod..."

But even he knows that there is something he misses. Ahhh, the simpler life of childhood from the perspective of a 14 year old. He's only 14, but he's lived a lot longer than that.

The first time we met Tyler.