what doesn't kill you makes you stronger...right?

I'm gettin' real personal today...as if you haven't had enough of those posts from me lately :)  For the record, this is not a whiny, poor me, life sucked kind of post.  This is how life was for us.  This is/was very real.

1 year ago Eric got a phone call that just really screwed up my future plans/was the blessing we'd been praying for/made me cry more than I ever have in my life/probably saved our sanity and marriage.  Wowzas!  I'm slightly embarrassed that all of those thoughts had gone through my head...at the same time. I was very ungrateful AND so grateful at the same time.  Poor Eric, now you know what kind of wifey he has to deal with...the crazy kind.  Haha.
Let me take you back 1 year and 7 months.  Eric had just lost his job due to the crappy economy.  He is an electrician, a dang good electrician at that.  St George, Utah was the #1 fastest growing city in the country a few years ago but when the economy dumped, all the jobs in St George went with it.  Especially construction work.  There was no way Eric was going to be able to find work as an electrician, and he was too "over qualified" for the jobs that were available.  I honestly believe that high school students had an easier time finding jobs than Eric did, because the employers knew that the students would stay working that job through their school career, and Eric would leave to take the next best job that was offered.  Honestly, this is totally how it works in St George.
Luckily, I had been working at my salon for a couple years and had a pretty established clientale.  We were able to make ends meet with my income but Eric was slowly losing it during these months.  You see, Eric is one of the hardest workers I know.  And he takes his resposibility as provider for our family very seriously.  He was applying for every available job in town, tried to stay busy with side jobs, but each day he was slipping deeper into a depression.  I didn't know how to handle that.  It was so frustrating to me that no matter what I said, I could not cheer him up.  And it was so frustrating to him that I tried to cheer him up.  Haha.  I laugh at how silly that sounds, but at the time, well...we weren't laughing. 
I can see how financial stress can tear a family up, but that's not what affected me and Eric.  Yes, that was incredibly stressful, but the fact that we woke up on a different page each day broke my heart.  How could we have a happy marriage if Eric wasn't happy?  We both just kept praying for the right job to come along.  It took almost 7 months until we got the phone call.  Actually, we got the phone call and Eric turned down the job.  I wasn't willing to move and we certainly weren't going to do the long distance thing.  But school was about to start for Eric and I finally realized there wasn't anything left in St George for us so Eric called them back....a month later...and they had him working the next week.  Wowzas.  Who would've thought they would still have that job waiting for him?The call came on a Thursday.  Eric woke up at 3am to drive north and get all the paper work squared away.  He drove back that night.  Packed and drove back up on Sunday and stayed with his sister for his first week of work.  I cried and cried all weekend long.  It just happened too fast.  Which was actually a good thing.  Remember, I did not want to move, I was never going to leave St George.  And now Eric was leaving me for 5 days at a time.  And I would soon be leaving St George.  I was freaking out.  I remember fretting that Eric would prefer living without me.  Haha how silly.  That man couldn't live without me :)  But that was an honest fear that I had.  It is true though, distance makes the heart grow fonder!
The month of August 2010 was the most stressful month of my life.  You know that saying... when it rains, it pours?  Yeah...I figured out how true that is as well :)  I was on the computer searching for an apartment, then Eric would go look at it after work.  I was trying to line things up with my salon and clients to come down and work one week a month.  I missed Eric, he missed me.  Then came the bills.  In one week we had to pay rent in St George, rent and deposit up north, school, books, 4 new tires, and the list goes on.  Did I mention Eric hadn't worked for about 7 months prior to these bills?  At the time, I didn't know how I was going to make it.  I thought the stress was going to drive me crazy.  Literally.  I wasn't sure if anything was going to work out for us.
Looking back on everything a year later, I can see that everything worked out just how it was supposed to.  I have learned to put my trust in the Lord, He truly does know what is best for us.  And I am so grateful that we did move.  Even though the winters here might kill me, and I dread even thinking about the snow, we have made so many friends that needed to be in our lives.  Eric is so busy with work and school, and has opportunities that he would never have in St George.  And I am incredibly blessed with amazing clients here and in St George.  Most importantly, I know that Eric is the best choice I ever made.  As dramatic as this sounds, I would not have been able to make it through that stressful trial with anyone else but him by my side.  AND!  I will never take a job, or savings for granted EVER again!