Storytime: My Husband Was Fired!

This is story of how my husband's firing became a blessing in disguise.

My husband got fired and it turned into a blessing in disguise. We’ve gone through several layoffs in the 18 years we’ve been married but this time was different. This time we were completely blindsided. This was my husband’s dream job (so he thought at the time). He was fired (not laid off) for no good reason. Basically, his position was terminated because a contract couldn’t be agreed upon by the company that employed him and the client he was actually doing the work for. His firing had nothing to do with him. Anyway, we were taken by surprise and had no backup plan. We were spending money like those checks would never stop coming. We started depending on those checks more than we depended on God. Somewhere, we got lost in the sauce and forgot the One who blessed us with that job. This could not have come at a worse time. He was fired right before Christmas (sigh), then came the pandemic shortly after that (double sigh). Every place my husband put in a resume, he was told they were under a hiring freeze until the new year. Of course shortly after the new year came, the whole country had shut done due to the global pandemic.

"My husband was fired and we were completely blindsided."

My husband was unemployed for almost 9 months. We went through our savings within the first 3 months. We had no choice but to turn back to the One who always does the impossible. He always makes something out of nothing which never made any sense to me. My husband did receive unemployment checks for the first 6 months but, those checks weren’t even 20% of what he was making on his job. It got rough, y’all. It was hard. But I’m so thankful for that time of “less.” We had no choice but to depend on God every single day. We prayed harder than we ever prayed before. The way it should’ve been whether we had a lot or a little. And you know what? Everyday, God provided for us. We had complete strangers handing us money, church members who barely knew us giving us money (that we never asked for). Somehow, all of the bills were paid even though we clearly didn’t have enough money to pay them. In that moment of “less” we promised ourselves we would never leave God out ever again. We would never forget where our help comes from.

"We had no choice but to turn back to the One who always does the impossible."

First step was to downsize out of our rental house and into a small apartment.

This was hard for me. Deep inside, I felt like I was going backwards. I didn’t want to go backwards. I wanted to move forward to bigger and better things. Which unbeknownst to me, that’s exactly what God was doing! (Stay with me here, I’ll explain everything!)

"We prayed harder than we had ever prayed before!"

Early in our marriage, we lived in income based apartments, which was truly a blessing for us. We were so broke back then, we couldn’t even afford toilet paper...LOL. They were beautiful townhomes with tall twenty foot ceilings. They were stunning and located in a safe family friendly neighborhood with walking trails and a movie theater nearby. We loved those townhomes. Well, naturally since we knew we had to downsize. I decided to give our old townhomes a call. They’re usually 100% occupied so I wasn’t very hopeful. We went up there on a Monday to view a model. It was just as beautiful as I remembered it. And to our surprise, they had a three bedroom two bathroom available. We put in an application, dropped off a deposit, and prepared to move in a week later. It was perfect timing!

"We discovered we didn't need half of what we thought we did."

It seems like soon as we moved in, money started appearing from everywhere. I received a call from a councilman from our county that asked us some questions about my husband’s unemployment. Well apparently, due to the pandemic, we were entitled to back pay. We were direct deposited about $5,500 a few days later. Also, since Husband only worked six months out of the previous year, we were way over taxed and received a very large tax refund (enough to pay our rent and utilities for the entire year). God is so good!!! But the money didn’t stop there! We also received a stimulus check for $4,400 shortly after that. Y’all this all happened in the span of two or three months (January - March). But wait, that’s not it! By April, companies started calling my husband for interviews and by the end of April, he had been offered a job paying $30,000 more than his last job! Increase on top of increase! All of this during a pandemic with all-time high unemployment rates...my husband was offered an amazing job opportunity!

"God is so good!!!"

Now do you see how this was a blessing in disguise?! If my husband would not have gotten fired, he would still be there, we would still be living in the same rental house, living way above our means, not saving and being good stewards over our money. We were stuck in a cycle and didn’t even realize it. God had to shake us up so that we would see things a little more clearly. God showed us we didn’t need half of what we thought we did.

"We were stuck in a cycle and didn't even realize it."

Since we were living below our means, we were able to save more money than we could have ever imagined. We paid off debt, got our credit in good standing, and spent tons of family time together (vacations, camping, outings and day trips). We were so excited about how much we had saved and how good life was while having less that we decided we wanted to live on the road fulltime in an RV. Well, we applied for financing for the RV and, sadly, was denied. We were pretty bummed about it but we know everything happens for a reason. We prayed about it and we decided we would wait on God’s perfect timing.

"We were so excited about how much we had saved and how good life was with less."

A few months later, my husband suggested we start looking into buying a home. (You can read about that process on our “We Bought a House” story.) I’ve heard people say that buying a home is one of the most stressful things you can do in life. But for us, it was quite the contrary. It was just as easy as applying for an apartment (if not easier). We found a house we loved on the first day we went out to look and closed 30 days later!

So, let’s recap! We went from living above our means, having poor credit, throwing away money, no job, no savings, to becoming gainfully employed aggressive savers with good credit and a new title...Homeowners! We haven’t given up our dream of buying an RV. We plan to look into purchasing our little vacation home on wheels Summer 2022. We have many summer camping trips and family vacations planned (as the pandemic lets up) so stick around and join the fun!