Faith

Here's the thing... Even when he, my husband, is so stressed out. Even when he is still so unbelievably worried, why am I not? We were that couple. We were the ones with the house on the hill. The huge house on the hill. You know the ones... Barbie and Ken. And, well... now we are not. We sold that house, for a variety of reasons. The main one being that I got sick with all that pain in my mouth. I won't go into all of that again.

I talked about that in one of the blogs a few days ago. It is a memory that is so ridiculously painful that it has made my mouth hurt since I wrote it.

Either way, now, since he is in the mortage business, and I have talked about this many times before, he is so worried about his next paycheck. And I have to say for the upteenth time how frustrating this is for me. Reason being that I believe in this man so much that I can't understand why he doesn't believe in himself.

It takes me back to a time when we were first together. 17 years ago. We were just starting out. He had bought his first home. It was a small, very small, home. He had just graduated from a very good college. He had put himself through. He was the first one in his family to go through college. He worked three jobs while going. He supported his mother while going.

And, when he got out of school, he worked for a company that made those tents that you see at parties, you know, the big white ones. He made the big salary of 19,000 dollars. But, it didn't matter. They were telling him it was a starter position to get into management. That lasted about 6 months and then they fired him.

And I remember him outside of his home throwing apples at the brick wall in the rain, so desperate because he had only 50 dollars in his account and no way to pay his new house note and car note. And we were about to get married. He was a real grown up for the first time. And, even then, I couldn't see what the problem was. All I could see was the man that I knew that he was. All I could see was potential. I knew that he would fix it.

I told him that then. And I remember him looking at me and expecting to see sympathy and it was something that I couldn't give him. Because I didn't feel like he needed it. I knew that he would find a way. Because it was what he had done his whole life.

My husband is a doer. When he needs to do something, he does it and he does it well. Not because someone else expects it of him, just because it is something that is instinctive within him. I recognized that within him then, and I still do now.

The thing is now... he has forgotten. He has lost his way. This morning when I was trying to help him remember, he actually cried a little. I haven't seen him do that in so many years. It is hard to see a strong man feel weak. It is also hard to convince someone that everything is going to be okay.

It is hard to teach faith, especially when you remember what it is like to be without it. He feels like his is drowning and I suppose that is what men do with finances when they feel like their family is relying on them.

This is also where real faith on my part comes in, because not for one minute do I not feel like everything is not going to be okay. Not for one minute do I feel like my goal is out of reach. I feel it coming now more than ever. Whatever is ahead of us is part of it.

He says that it must be his time to go through a "rough patch". I have been there, and it was so unbelievably painful. But, I have to say that it changed my world in such a way that I don't think that I could see life the way I do now without having gone through the pain. That sounds like a cliche, I know, but I guess you have to live it to know.

I never noticed rainbows until this year. Sure, I saw them, but I never purposely enjoyed storms in hopes of seeing the rainbows that followed.