the day in which we remember the Holy Family<\/a>, Joseph included, I would like to offer up a prayer for my family.\u00a0 It\u2019s been a long, difficult year.\u00a0 My sister\u2019s family has been hit hard by troubles with her son, with the sudden onset of illness for her husband, and a disastrous financial collapse due to ill fortune and corrupt business partners.\u00a0 In short, they went from owning several houses to being on the verge of homelessness, my sister forced to help raise her granddaughter. <\/p>\nMeanwhile, my Dad\u2019s Alzheimer\u2019s caused a downward spiral last year, one that eventually led to us putting him in a nursing home in March.\u00a0 Within five weeks, he had died.\u00a0 We still don\u2019t know what happened.\u00a0 But we miss him.\u00a0 It was the first death of a close relative that my children experienced.\u00a0 At the same time, I was left without employment, any freelance and part time work having dried up despite rumors of an improving economy.<\/p>\n
In Summer, we realized my Mom couldn\u2019t stay by herself any more and we invited her to live with us; with us, in a house meant as a starter for families with three to five people, already boasting a six member family.\u00a0 Now, with her, we have seven living under the same roof.\u00a0 At the same time, I began working for Aflac.\u00a0 A great product I believe in, one that does what it says.\u00a0 The problem?\u00a0 By all honest accounts, it can take up to two years before you really see the money coming in (remember, this is as self-employment, so all the glorious expenses and taxes that come with being self-employed).\u00a0 No problem, as my wife made enough and had good enough benefits for us to scratch out a living until I got my feet on the ground. <\/p>\n
And then December 7, a date which will live in infamy.\u00a0 Now for more than one reason.\u00a0 My wife was asked to meet her supervisor at the human resources department of McGraw-Hill, where she was promptly told that her position had been eliminated by a computer program in New York.\u00a0 There was no bargaining, no pleading, no begging.\u00a0 It had been printed, and it was a done thing.\u00a0 By 2012, she would join the throngs of the unemployed while I was scarcely bringing in enough money to pay the expenses it takes to make the money in the first place. <\/p>\n
So coming into the holidays, realizing that for the second time since we became Catholic, we were both without steady incomes, this time with a total of seven people to keep, and a floundering economy, I can\u2019t help but admit things have looked better.\u00a0 2011 was a bad year.\u00a0 It just was.\u00a0 We tried to make the best,\u00a0to make lemonade where there were lemons, to put the best face on it we could, but it was just a bad year.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
So we\u2019re praying that 2012 will be better, that the Mayans were incorrect, and that our fortunes will turn and we will see God at work in our lives, have the faith to follow His will, and see by the end that it was all worth it.\u00a0I would like to think finding our paths would happen because of the Church, not despite the Church.\u00a0 And my prayer is that we will be able to declare a wonderful testimony about how 2011 was made in some ways better by the abundant blessings of 2012.\u00a0 It\u2019s a prayer I have.\u00a0 And I pray to the Holy Family, to Mary, to Joseph, who like me had his earthly family to tend, and to Jesus Christ my savior and lord, that by next year at this time, we will have been put into a situation where we can finally give, and from that\u00a0it shall be given unto us; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, that our children may see the blessings we have received through our Faith in Christ through His Holy Church.\u00a0 That is my prayer.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The flight to Egypt On this, the day in which we remember the Holy Family, Joseph included, I would like to offer up a prayer for my family.\u00a0 It\u2019s been a long, difficult year.\u00a0 My sister\u2019s family has been hit hard by troubles with her son, with the sudden onset of illness for her husband, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2805,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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