Anniversary Post
It is about four years since I began this blog.  I've noticed that other "bloggers" sometimes do anniversary posts so that is what I am going to do this week.  This isn't a repeat, it just goes back very many years.   I pass this on as a witness, for God has been good in the 16+ years since we've located to California, become involved in Grace to You, Grace Community Church, et al.
Positive Negatives
On page 115 of his book, Anxiety Attacked, John MacArthur writes, "Contentment is a by-product of distress.  It comes when you experience the sustaining power of Christ when you simply have run out of steam.  'To him who lacks might He increases power' (Isaiah 40:29).  We do well to experience enough difficulty in our lives to see Christ's power on display in us."
23 May 1993
Short list of positive negatives:
No house (no mortgage)
No kids (to uproot)
Little debt
22 July 1993
Garry is on the phone to someone out west about work.... He's much more relaxed than he was a week ago.
26 July 1993
It's still a challenge to think (realize) that five weeks from tomorrow is G's last day as a full time employee of MPress, or that it's 18 weeks since he learned it would be at or by the end of 1993.  It'll be "by" rather than "at."  I'm thankful for all that is known.  And not.  I'd rather move to CSprings than to the L.A. area if we move west.
Expansion and Retroflection
Sometimes God may deny us what we most want in order to give us what we most need.
Garry and I had discussed options we might explore once he had put in his twenty years, and plans we would need to make in the intervening years.  At that time, I was working part time, and he had been with his employer more than fifteen years--almost sixteen.
Those anticipated years proved to be months.
The day before our fourth wedding anniversary, Garry told me changes were under way which included phasing out his department by year's end.  Department meant his position.  No, no place else for him in the organization.  Sorry, but.
Less than a month after Garry cleaned out his desk, my father died unexpectedly.  For a long time he had encouraged us to strike out on own our, to start a business of our own.  Now that we were going to, before we could tell him, he was gone.
Running our own business did not work out as we had hoped it would, but we did not know what else to do, or what possible dividends might come later as a consequence of the contacts made or strengthened. 
We ended up living with friends from the church in Illinois for several months.  (That is a story in itself.  While we were wondering if we should ask them, they were wondering what help they might offer.  It worked out as only God could cause it to.  We joined their family on the weekend of our fifth anniversary and stayed until we moved to California.)
Just when we had reached the end of options we could think of, knowing we could not stay with our friends much longer, Garry was offered a position which could not have been more suitable.  It did not come "out of the blue"; he had been making phone calls to everyone he knew who might either know of some work or have some to offer.  We did not just say, Okay, God, here we are, take care of us.
However, the job was in California.  Southern California.  Near Los Angeles.
We lived in the Midwest.  Our roots went deep there:  our families, our church, and our lives.  Never had the possibility of moving to California entered into my/our calculations/plans.
Yet here we are--16+ years later--and gratefully.
What do positive negatives have to do with anything?
Not buying a house, as we were advised to do when we first married, meant not having to deal with that when things changed.  It was hard enough emotionally to leave the apartment we were renting.
Not having let credit purchases get out of hand meant having credit to draw on.  Garry plans and saves rather than acting impulsively.  Being fiscally conservative has proved to be a blessing.  That has not meant we've had no lean times, just no importunate creditors adding to the mix.
Not having children--which was hardest to come to grips with--has also meant being more flexible.  It took me many years to come to a place of peace about my childlessness.  God graciously worked through many, including women's ministries at my current church, until I realized that not having (physical) children has made it possible for us to, again, be flexible and available for ministry.
I have not "arrived" but I am aware that being denied what I had most expected or wanted does not mean being denied what I most need.
We really learned this passage from James 4:13-15 during the year 1993-1994:  "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit'--yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.  What is your life?  For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.  Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.'"