They Took Our Jobs!

For those of you that don't get it, I'm referring to a South Park Episode.

But I'm not here today to talk about South Park.  Last Friday (9-9-2011) I was given my two weeks layoff notice from Northrop Grumman.  Work has been slow (virtually nonexistent) for a while though, so to be honest, the only surprise for me was that this day didn't come sooner.  It still sucks though, and now I'm one week into looking for new work and trying to enjoy the extra time that I have now at home (pretty successfully I might add).

I have been getting plenty of encouragement from my friends, family, and acquaintances though.  Additional encouragement was even offered by a amazingly timed Dilbert cartoon on Sunday:

Mostly though, I am trusting God in this.  While not negating the necessity of my own efforts (I don't expect to sit back on my butt and expect God to have someone call me up and get a new job for me), I know that God is able to handle problems much bigger than mine.

On the flip side though, I know several other families from church who have gone for a couple or years (or more) without finding work.  These are people who I consider to be God fearing, Christ following Christians too, who I totally respect for their faith.  So why should things be any different for me then?

Really, I don't know the answer to that.  In all honesty though, even if we do end up losing our house through foreclosure, would it really be that big of a deal?  Our payments are way too high and we're completely upside down in the loan-to-value of it anyway.  In fact, I would consider us to be plenty blessed as long as we have each other, our health, food to eat, and some kind of roof over our heads to protect us from the elements.  I am truly thankful too, to live in a country that has many safeguards to protect against a scenario where I would find myself homeless or without food.  These include unemployment, food stamps, and even welfare (if it came down to it).

These are all situations that would inspire and require a great deal of humility, to be sure.  Hopefully it won't come to that though.  I'm just thinking through all aspects of this and going down the worst case paths in my mind.