One Year Later

What a difference a year makes! One year ago on July 20th, our house had just collapsed. Literally, overnight, my wife and sons and I were rendered homeless. While this sounds a bit hyperbolic, it is no exaggeration. We had no idea what we were going to do. Could we ever make the house structurally safe? Could we rebuild? Was the house going to be "totaled" in the manner of a car which suffered damages more than its overall value? All these questions, and then some, were rocketing around in mine and Jess' heads. We had faced adversity before; but nothing had ever prepared us for this. Thankfully, Jess was a rock and kept things together and eventually, day by day, things began to fall into place. We went as planned to Michigan and while we were not sure if we should still go due to the house being in shambles, we went anyway and it ended up helping us forget what was going on back home. When we came back, it was as though we started anew. We found a nice furnished loft to live in for the duration of the rebuild. Jess' firm began work in earnest and each day, the house had a new feature built or installed. And before we knew it, it was late October and we were moving back in. One year later, we have sold the aforementioned house and are preparing to move to Belgium. The biggest thing I learned in this time was that God works in incredibly mysterious ways. Last year we were in despair.  This year we attained the personal and professional goal of moving to Europe. While I have not yet mastered the ability to fully put all of my worries and concerns in God's hands, I have learned that, while something may be going anywhere from minutely to overwhelmingly wrong, it can only get better and hopefully that terrible day will end up being a learning experience, as the house catastrophe was for us. I just want everyone to know that even when you are in the depths of despair; when you are having an absolutely terrible day, it will get better. Just pray and do your best to put your negative thoughts and worries aside and trust that the Big Guy will get you through it and He will; eventually. It may not be tomorrow or the next week or even the next year, but it will get better.