Falling down

I've been reminded of many things lately.  My old home teacher and adopted Grandpa reminded me "a defeat that brings you to your knees is a victory."  I've been thinking about that as Todd (and hense the rest of the family) has had to retake his first year in the program.  I think a lot of good will come from this "failure."  Is it easy--NO.  But I am so proud of Todd for reapplying.  And I think the second time around is going to go so much better for us.  Now we are trying to work out all the details to make sure that can happen.
We were planning on buying a house this time of year.  With my pregnancy, I have lost 2/3 of my income at work--due to physical limitations: I can't lift 95 lbs anymore.  They have been wonderful, and given me the work they had that I can do.  But it has been an adjustment.  With the knowledge we had, we decided to go ahead and wait to buy a house.  We can be patient.  But the Lord had other things in mind for us.  We were surprised when we felt strongly impressed to buy now.  We found out about Todd's program after our offer on the Jefferson house was in but before we heard back.  We didn't get the Jefferson house--and in a lot of ways that was a relief.  And we thought that maybe we would go back to plan A no wait--that was plan B :) and use our downpayment money to help cover costs and get Todd through school.  But again, we felt impressed to look at other houses.  We now have an offer that has been accepted on a house on the West Richland, Benton City bourder.  It is just a few miles from where our last house was.  We are very excited--and a little bit nervous.
As all of this has gone on, I've been reminded "The important things is not being afraid to take a chance.  Remember the greatest failure is not to try."  We have fallen flat on our faces once before.  We've fallen many time--but I think only once have we fallen so far as to have been considered "failures."  It was a hard time.  It was when we first moved to Washington almost 5 years ago.  I would not want to go through that again.  But looking back, the memories we have are good ones, mostly.  We built a relationship with Todd's grandparents in a way that we never could have otherwise.  We learned how to budget our money--which we could never have done what we've done with Todd's schooling had we not learned this!!  We learned to lean on each other and God.  And we learned many other hard lessons--would I go back and not have gone through that experience now if given the chance?  Not on your life!!  It was hard, but we are so much better for having been through that gauntlet.
One lesson that has come back to many times--as we've looked at houses--is our one repoed truck.  We had a little red Nissan.  And we got to the point where we could no longer keep up on the payments and everything else during the time was first moved to WA.  We tried to sale the truck--and it just didn't happen.  And they ended up coming and taking it away.  We prayed that somehow we would be able to settle this account.  And we did finally get a phone call.  They made us a settlement offer we could almost pay.  It would involve cleaning out our emergency fund we had just finished putting together.  If any of you have read Dave Ramsey--you'd know, this is not what the emergency fund was for.  We were counciling with our bishop at the time about our finances.  And we went back and forth some--do we clean out our emergency fund and pay it.  Or do we hold on to our emergency fund and take care of the truck when we can.  I remember he finally asked--"What are you afraid of?"  I think my answer surprised him.  I was afraid that this was a door God had opened for us so we could settle the truck.  And I was afraid we weren't going to walk through it.  We paid off the truck and everything worked out.  Most people would have been nervous about not having that emergency money, I think.
As we have gone through this process of buying a house and figuring how to send Todd back to school for two more years--I've felt that way.  I am not afraid of failing.  I've failed before--I learn a lot of really good things through my failures.  And some of them have brought me much closer to my Savior.  I wouldn't trade that.  My fear is not trying ANYTHING.  I don't want to look up and find my life just the same as it is today in five years.  I don't want to be to afraid to walk through the doors God has opened for me because I might trip.  It's not the safe way, but it is very much me.  Knowing what I know now--would I go back and tell Todd "No!  Don't go back to school.  It's going to take 5 years not 3.  And it's going to be so much harder than we ever imagined."  No.  We have learned a lot.  I have finally had the laziness beaten out of me, I think.  And this is just one needed lesson.  If we had known those details, maybe we wouldn't have done it.  But we have gained so much more because we did.
So I encourage you to JUMP.  Try something new.  It's okay if you fail.  "Failure is an event, not a person."  And sometimes it makes you stronger.