Hope Through Sacrfice

It has taken me quite a few months to feel any type of hope for the success of our future. After months of looking and applying and interviewing for jobs and praying and fasting and trying to not give up hope, Mr. Jewels and I have decided that the Lord wants for us to give up on the job search temporarily and go back to school to earn a doctorate degree. Hopefully by then the job market will look a lot better and if not, then he will have the option of teaching.
I have felt of lot of varying emotions through this whole process, and at first I was quite content and happy, but as time moved on I began to feel differently, just to name a few...despair, envy, anger, jealousy, pity, grief, selfishness, humility, embarassment, sadness, fear, and finally, hope. Hope through sacrifice. I had to ask myself "Am I willing to give up all that we had been working towards for what the Lord sees for our future, although I cannot yet see it?" It's scary and humbling to allow our Heavenly Father to direct our lives and take care of us. I had to be submissive. With much pondering, help and prayer, the Lord has taken those awful feelings and replaced them with hope, love, desire, willingness, happiness and a renewed faith. I have learned that it is okay to stop and cry for awhile. I have learned that life is full of sacrifices, sometimes easy to make, sometimes hard to make. I know it won't be easy these next couple of years, but there is still hope. "God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord" (2 Timothy 1:7-8)