More Blessings

My husband is now "officially" unemployed due to a lay-off and we are experiencing the Peace that passes understanding. I think one of the reasons that we feel such a peace at this normally stressful time is that we have really been focusing on our blessings and how thankful we are for what we have.
The list that follows declare a small portion of the blessings we have received since Joe found out about the lay-offs last November. It is kind of long but we have found that the more we focus on our blessings, the less we fell sorry for ourselves!

• This is an opportunity for Joe to find a job he really loves!
• This happened AFTER we got out of debt - thanks Dave Ramsey!
• His date of lay-off went from Jan 4 to March 31 in a span of 15 minutes.
• This can be Joe’s mid-life crisis! (He got the news the week of his 40th birthday)
• We decided to continue our giving to the church instead of lowering it when we completely renovated our budget. The next day my dad suggested looking at our 401k contribution. The amount of contribution that now goes into his paycheck instead of his 401k equals the amount we had considered lowering our tithe amount – plus some.
• That same day we received a monetary gift – enough to live by our Emergency Budget for almost 3 months.
• Someone who provides a service for us dropped the rate by $10 per month, without us asking.
• We had our 2nd straight year of All Cash Christmas!
• We have had tons of encouragement and prayers from family and friends - thank you!
• We are living on an Emergency Budget and putting money in savings every month, we have realized that we can live on SO much less than we have been!
• Found out about using an antenna instead of cable and we disconnected our land line saving us over $600 per year and we still get great channels!
• Started using Cartridge World for our printer ink cartridges saving us over $10 per cartridge.
• After we prayed for provision, Joe continued to be extended in his job for an additional 4 months.
• I got a little part time that that will, hopefully, pay for our groceries each month.
• We put in a raised-bed garden and it has provided over $200 worth of free food this summer.
• We are healthy.
  
• We were given a really cool entertainment center that looks great in the living room - AND hides the TV when it is not in use!
• We thought we had a major car issue but it turned out to be only a fluid problem.
• We have found so many ways to go and have fun for FREE!
• We were blessed to be able to spend time with all four of our parents this year.

We know that God has a plan for us and we believe part of that plan was for us to learn to live on less. It is such a great feeling to have a little money in the bank rather than a ton of debt hanging over our heads. We continue to search for more ways to save - it has become almost a game for us! Thanks for taking the time to read this, hope you have a great week and I encourage you to count your blessings!