I have been wanting to write about this for awhile, but I finally have some peace and quiet to sit down and write. :) Losing a job is like having a miscarriage. It brings up some of the same feelings--the plans that you had for the future suddenly in a matter of just a few words change. We accepted the job 3.5 years ago, planning that Scott would raise a generation of kids through his practice and he was committed to making this clinic the best in town. We bought a house that we could stay in for 20 years and raise our family in. Then he was told they would not renew his contract--simple as that (well not really). He went from being told he was the face of the hospital a few months before to buh-bye. The irony is that the person who threatened to quit if they didn't get rid of Scott was simultaneously asking to be hired across town. So, it was difficult to feel that your loyalty and commitment to the system did not matter in this situation, and it was hard to watch your husband be painted a certain way when he had the patients, staff, and what was best for the clinic weighing heavily on his heart. God has allowed some of the truth to come out in different ways, but it's hard to not want justice and the whole world to know what had happened the previous year. There are so many sides to the situation that made it very difficult, but in the moment you feel the feelings of shock and all of the dreams I had about raising our girls and more in our house began to shatter. We didn't know if it would work out to stay in town or if we would have to move, but in a moment all of those plans disappeared. You wake up one morning dreaming about Christmas with the girls in this house to the next morning having no idea if you'll have to pack it all up (and I had thrown away every box, because we thought we would probably never move again). The more I looked around the house and neighborhood and thought about all of the things I was looking forward to, the more sad I got about the prospect of leaving, and the more angry I got about the fact that deception and lies were at the root of us having to rip up our life and move. I had just gotten to the point where I felt like our life was peaceful and there was nothing major we had to work through. Although, I did get a sense that God kept speaking "don't get too comfortable" I kept wondering if He was going to call us to a mission field or maybe just reminding us to keep it all in perspective, but I did want to enjoy the time we were having. But, just like with pregnancy--one day you are dreaming about what it will be like to finally have him/her, and then the next morning you wake up to find out that the dream is gone.
It took 4 months for us to figure out what we were going to do--which I understand isn't very long in the job world, but it was amazing to me how many feelings resurrected in me from when we lost Grace. Maybe the uncertainty (In the moment I didn't know when we would be able to have another baby) and certainly the shattered dreams part--we had so looked forward to having a baby alongside our church family in Germany, but of course, looking back, we don't really think about it anymore. Scott struggled with many feelings of "does God really care about me?" "Does He really care about what job I have?" Of course, Yes! Yes! YES! I know while I was grieving over losing Grace I felt God loving me, and I hoped that Scott would feel the same as he was grieving this situation. Thankfully God provided a lot of encouragement from our community that they loved him, and other colleagues gave him their support. This helped tremendously! And I do believe that God picked him up out of a difficult situation and put him in a better place. (It's hard to be convinced of that when you're in the middle of the situation, but I know he is grateful for his new colleagues and an environment that is much more positive!). During this time, I started reading the book Shattered Dreams, by Larry Crabb, and I highly recommend it for many situations.
