"Let's Go Out to Dinner" - The Four P's

Now to get back to where I was before I was prompted to write the last two posts.   Our family had grown to nine with the birth of Lea.  She was about 2 years old, Jon had just started school, the twins were just starting junior high school, and the three older girls were all in high school.  Needless to say I was keeping pretty busy doing what all full-time moms do ... chaffering, cooking, doing laundry, (lots of that), cleaning, packing lots of lunches, helping with homework, planning weekly family home evenings - a top priority (Jim wasn't much help), attending the kid's programs at school, going to parent-teacher conferences, working in the PTA, helping with science projects, canning fruit and vegetables, etc. etc.  Of course there were all the usual teenage "drama" with three girls in high school. Things were a little crazier than normal because of the wide age span between all the children.  Each age has its' own problems and challenges.

Jim was still serving in the bishopric, working hard to support his growing family.  He never wanted me to have to work, and neither did I.  I was willing to sacrifice luxuries and to be frugal with necessities so I could stay home and raise the family.  I felt that that was what God wanted me to do.
So it was of considerable concern when Jim came home after work one night and announced to the family that he had been laid off from his job.  The whole economy was struggling at that time and there were a lot of layoffs going on in the job market.  I was so proud of Jim when he gave us the news with a smile on his face.  He dispelled any doom and gloom among the family members by saying,  "Don't worry.  I'll find a job. Now let's all go out to dinner".  Going out to dinner was a special treat for the kids because we didn't do that very much (maybe McDonalds once in a while).  It was expensive to take our large family to a regular restaurant.  So out we went!

Finding a job was a lot more difficult than Jim expected even though he would really work at it.  He would get up every morning at the same time he was used to to go to work.  He would get dressed as ingoing to work (white shirt and tie ...he was an engineer), read the want ads in the paper circling any possibilities no matter how remote, look on line for any other possibilities, ask anyone he knew in the engineering field to let him know if there were openings they might be aware of and network as much as he could.  Weeks turned into months and it wasn't long before his separation pay was used up ... even though the bishop had asked him to use the money we had to pay the bills and to take church welfare aid for food.  We were very hesitant to do that.  We had always been self-sustaining.  But the bishop said he wanted his ward to see that even ward leaders may need help at times, and that was ok.
It was necessary to eliminate any "luxuries" from our life like trips or vacations, Debbie's dance lessons, movies, dinners out, etc.

After about six months, Jim took a job in Azusa - not an ideal job nor in an ideal location.  It was a two-hour drive from Thousand Oaks - no freeways.  But it once again brought in an income.  Our severance pay had run out.  Jim suffered through those four hours in the car every day while still looking for a better job.  It was real torture for him for the next four months.  Then his persistence and prayer paid off when he was able to get a job at Litton in Woodland Hills just twenty minutes away.  God does give us trials AND blessings,  The lessons learned during this trial were: positive attitude (dinner out), patience, persistence, prayers answered - the four "P's.