A New Found Freedom

I was recently standing in line at the grocery store to purchase my cartful of groceries when several people all kind of congregated together talking about the unemployment state Michigan is in currently. Of course, it was very obvious to me that Governor Grandholm was not at the top of their 'favorite people' list.

This group went around giving their unemployment story to each other. Most of their stories centered around the auto industry. I thought it was kind of amazing that right there in the grocery store that this group found a kind of like support group in each other for a brief period. It was so sad to hear how long many of them have been looking for work. I was so thankful that our family had not been touched by unemployment.

My husband showed up around lunch time today. I thought to myself, uh oh...look to see if he's smiling or if he has his mad face on. The kids assured me he was smiling so I allowed relief to set in and quickly dismissed his early arrival home as maybe he has a long conference call that his boss was allowing him to take from home.

As he entered our home, the inquisition began. He responded with the fact that he no longer worked for EDS. Shock flooded my mind. How can this be, I asked myself? He just got back to work from being off for his surgery. Then of course, other questions started zipping through my mind. This is NOT a good time to be finding a job was screaming inside my head. What are we going to do? He just hugged me and assured me that everything was going to be alright.

His response was simply this:

You know in the movie, Braveheart, when Mel Gibson is about to be beheaded and he yells at the top of his lungs...FREEDOM. That's Bob. That's how he illustrated today at the office.

His boss mentioned something about RIF (reductions in force) yada yada yada. However, I find it very coincidental that he's back to work for less then a week after being on short-term disability due to his previous health issues and now find they are letting him go. So it's great you have benefits just so long as you never have to use them? When he was off work last year for his ankle surgery, they weren't happy either and it reflected in his review. I'm sure his medical time off, has something to do with this too.

So now we've joined the ranks of many others.....unemployed. On a good note, his boss gave him a letter of recommendation which I have no idea whether it will help him find a job or not but at least, it's something. We've got some big decisions to make in the near future. Please pray for us that we will have wisdom in those decisions.