Brighter Tomorrow

Danelle was mad at me the other day. In her mind, she was fully justified wanting whatever it was from the store at the time so when I told her (like always), "Danelle, we don't have money for that right now," she had enough! She finally asked, "well, when will we not be poor?"

"Danelle," I answered, "Money isn't everything." I explained all the things we do have compared to others and how lucky we really are. We have so much to be thankful for! We have everything we NEED. We have enough money to meet our needs, clothes on our back, a nice home with heat and water, and a bright future ahead of us - especially now that Shayne is about to graduate college.

It seems like forever ago that Shayne decided to go back to school. We had been through a lot of rough patches financially to finally make that decision. Shayne had been working as a salesman with unstable paychecks, and we had just lost our home in Cedar Hills (not my proudest admission). Life was harder than ever at that point. We wanted another baby so badly but ran into infertility probelms, and it seemed like NOTHING was going our way. I was upset with where our life was going. Our marriage and faith was being tested and I was starting to lose hope of anything changing.

Then Shayne started to talk about going back to school. All the sudden, we were caught in a long dark tunnel with a light at the end! I urged him to take the plunge and KNEW that although it would be hard, we would be SO BLESSED for him going to school.

Shayne started in fall 2008 at Steven's-Henager College in Provo going into Health Care Administration with an emphasis in biotechnology. In 2009, reality of the importance of his degree hit when his job at the time closed it's doors leaving former workers unemployed. The economy had taken a dive and employers had now hundreds of applicants wanting the same job. If you didn't have a bachelors degree you were among the first to be weeded out. We realized even if he didn't want to go into his field, just having a bachelors degree in anything put him ahead of the game. We looked forward to job security.

It's now 2012. It's been a LONG road, but I could always take whatever difficulty we came across KNOWING that one day it would be better! Well, that day is coming fast because Shayne just got his graduation date and time. June 21st at 6:00 p.m. I will be watching my husband graduate! I have never been more proud of any of his accomplishments. We have stuck it out and are better and more in love than ever knowing we did it as a team.

I am so grateful to him for the sacrifices I know he made to go back to school. I love him dearly and can't wait for the day the girls and I will be his cheerleaders when he walks on that stage. It's going to be HUGE and he deserves it.

WAY TO GO SHAYNE! :) Almost there.