He Gives and Takes Away

God gives. God takes away.

I think as Christians, we become pretty familiar with how God gives and takes away in our lives. I can think of many times when He's done just that. My latest example? Our little baby. He gave us that baby. and He took it away. I'm ok with that, really, because He is God. Was I angry at God? yes. Was I completely devastated? yes. Did I question God? at first, yes. But no longer do I question Him.

There has been no news on the fertility front lately, because my body still hasn't "reset" yet.

John has been working as a cable technician with Time Warner Cable for a little over 2 years now. While it had its good times sprinkled in, it was so inundated with negative things, and the longer John was with them, the unhappier I saw him get. Never seemed to fail - he would be having a good day, and at his very last job, something would happen, and he would be two hours past when he should have been off. Or, he would actually get off on time, but would have to take teammates jobs, because they were running behind.. (Don't get me wrong, they had to do that for him, too..) The late nights were becoming more and more common, and yet when his paychecks would come, there would be 1-2 hours of overtime on them... HUH? you've GOT to be kidding me. They give these techs soooo many jobs a day, and expect them to get everything done within a short amount of time; they aren't able to eat lunch half the time, but you know what? Time Warner still docked an hour from their paychecks every day for lunch, whether they went or not. This year - came tax time. We were so excited! and then I sat down to file them, and realized something was horribly wrong. We owe $800!!!! Again - what the heck? John started doing research and realized they were not pulling the right amount of taxes out. One check - they had only pulled $5 in federal withholdings!! Before you ask - yes, we checked, and he was filing Married and Zero. I didn't make much more than him, but I had double the taxes withheld from my checks he did. He called corporate, and the lady was so ready to get him off the phone - she was like "Yep. Everything looks good over here!." She made up something along the lines of "Texas must have changed something, because we didn't." bleh. Texas, first of all, doesn't pay taxes, and second of all - BS!

Anyways - I could go on and on and on, but I won't.

John had a job. He had an income. We were ok financially, but could have been a lot better. John wasn't getting paid what he deserved for all the work he did, and it didn't look like things were going to get any better, despite all the promises made to him by different people...

Time Warner had excellent benefits, though. Remember this post? In case you don't, or you dont' have time to read - this is the post where I celebrated the fact that we found out John's insurance would completely cover our fertility treatments.

Let me tell you - there has been a lot of praying in the Parker house about this. We knew that if John left Time Warner, the wonderful benefits would go away, and the fact is - we cannot afford fertility treatments on our own. Those benefits are really the main reason John didn't look for another job sooner. We want more than anything to have a baby.

Yesterday, John resigned his position with Time Warner. He accepted a new position with a company called Knight Office Solutions. He is moving into sales, and if you know John personally - you know this will be perfect for him. His personality just says it all! He will be making more money, and for the first time since we've met (and for the first time since he can last remember) he will be working Monday - Friday! Normal Business Hours! No more working holidays!

So God is giving John this great opportunity, but He is taking away the means for us to get the fertility treatments we have been so excited about.

I'm ok with this, though. John is who I have right now, and nothing broke my heart more than to hear of his bad days every single day. I couldn't stand to see him so unhappy. My main concern became John's happiness, and success in his career. This job caused a lot of stress, and has made some life living very difficult for us. John is the most important person in my life right now, so I'm willing to give up something I have wanted for years now because he means just that much to me.

Once again, I'm at peace.

I totally hate the cliche statements -

"It's all in God's time."

"God's gonna give you a baby when He thinks you're ready."

"God just has other plans for you." yadda yadda yadda...

While these are some of the least comforting statements, I believe they are true. I believe that even though it seems as if God's closing the fertility treatment door, this may be His way of telling us that we don't need the fertility treatments anyway. I got pregnant once, and maybe that's why we went through the first one, just so He could show us that it IS possible for us to get pregnant.

God is moving in our lives right now in more ways than I can even tell right now! I'm nervous and excited and all sorts of things right now - strapped in and ready to go along for the ride.

Thank you for your continued prayers for us. This will be a bit of a rough transition for a few weeks, but we're up for it! John starts his new job on Monday!

Here we go God!