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Week #11

This week was a great reminder about how we have to make sure we pay attention to the most important things. I think that in our quest to realize our dreams, our life can become a nightmare. This is something I have seen repeatedly. When I was 18, I had the opportunity to live in the Silicon Valley at the height of the .com boom. I lived in a very rich area with many extremely well educated and extremely wealthy people. I got a first-hand view of the fact that money cannot buy happiness. Luckily the family I worked for had a lot of experience with money and the pitfalls it can bring, so they were not facing the challenges that many others were facing. For someone who had grown up in farming communities in Idaho, I always thought that the answer to life's problems was money. I am ever thankful for the opportunity I had to learn otherwise so I could set my priorities. 

There are times when we all have to face difficult decisions between work and family. I think that it can be a challenge and something that every family has to navigate carefully. I think that there is also not one right answer for every family and that your spouse has to be supportive of what you are doing and have a clear vision of what they are getting into and the sacrifices it might require. That way the needed support can be there at difficult times. It reminded me of when my husband and I decided to go to grad-school. My husband got accepted into an international MBA program that was competitive and also compressed into 18 months instead of the normal 2 years. This was key for us because we already had kids and the less time we had to live on borrowed money, the better. Anyway, we both agreed to the plan and set off. That 18 months was one of the most challenging times in our marriage. Our family time was non-existent and we were now living far from the support of extended family. There were many times when I wanted to quit, but I remembered that I had agreed to support my husband and that he was working hard to put our family in a better position later. I had to set aside my personal frustrations at the time so he could focus. It ended up being a time of great learning and growth for our family, but my husband has always said how much he relied on my complete support at that time. He felt the pressure and stress of making it through the program and securing a job after the fact, and it was worth all the time we sacrificed then for the time we have with him now. I think that there are times when it is okay to make some sacrifices if later you are able to have a better position. This is something that can be tricky though because we can develop a bad pattern of choosing other things over our family. If we are careful and include the Lord, we can be able to navigate these difficult choices to put our families in a better position. The Lord wants us to have success and he will help us along the way. 

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