I need to get it off my chest!

This morning I was awoken by my phone sounding telling me I had a text. It was a long text by a well meaning person venting some frustrations about me. (Long story). My first reaction: Can I just put a bullet through my head and be done? About this time, my husband is getting in the shower and calls out from the bathroom about something. Do I tell him or keep quiet? Thankfully some sense kicks and I tell my husband how I'm feeling without much explanation. I have a habit of keeping quiet when I'm on the brink of quitting. Instead of holding everything in I'm going to get somethings of my chest.

In no particular order here they are.

For crying out loud people, stop judging!! You have no idea what another is going through. The things you post or say about people can be the breaking point in someone's life. I can tell you from personal experience the people who are quiet and seem to keep everything together, helping other people, and are "saints" are usually the ones that are one unthoughtful comment away from killing themselves. Be a friend and include everyone. Seek first to understand then be understood. It might surprise you what you find out is going on in someone's life and you might be more forgiving.

I constantly see posts about people being on welfare and how they are bums living on someone else's money. Or how people are tired of their hard earned money being given away to people who don't want to work for themselves. I'm ashamed to admit I use to be one of these uneducated, condoning people. Not anymore. Do you want to know why?  Let me educate you.

Within a few years of being married, we were very blessed and my husband made good money. We had a house, we had food storage and had a years worth of money saved up. We had 5 children with #6 on the way. Life was good. We gave to the poor, lived in a great neighborhood and great ward. Then in 2010, my husband took a pay cut and we were keeping our eyes out for new employment. Money was tight but we were still managing. A few months later my husband is one of the last employees working for this company. Still no new job options. Then it happened. He goes to work and they announce to the final employees to go home. They are closing their doors. 9 months, 100's of job applications and 2 job interviews later, we were still jobless, child 6 was due anytime, and our savings is just about spent. We lost our home. We did not have the option to move in with family. What now? We had some hard decisions to make. We turned to welfare for help after exhausting all our resources. Let me tell you what it's like to be on welfare. Our first "welfare" home was a 4 bedroom 1000sq ft dump on a very busy street with very strict rules about the property, who can visit and for how long, etc... I was still grateful for a roof over our heads. Then we were blessed to rent a better home with Sec 8 subsidy.  We have been here for 5 years trying to better our situation and get back on our feet with Kevin going back to school and working when he can. So why aren't we off welfare yet? Because we can't get off and survive. We don't want to be on it. It has become a necessary thorn in our lives. We are told how much we can rent a house for, how much $ for food we can use, and we can't have more than $2000 of assets (money, cars) or we get kicked off welfare. It's a catch 22. When we have an income we pay a % of that towards rent which I completely agree with. Then food stamps are also reduced drastically by more than what we are actually bringing home. Somehow we are supposed to make up the difference of rent going up and paying the difference in food costs when our new expenses equal more than our income We also lose medicaid for Kevin and me if we make more than $1236/month (that's for a family of 10!) which leaves us paying the "fee" at tax time. We recently found out we won't be able to extend our contract this year for our current home. That means we get to move again and find a place set within the limits the government dictates or be homeless. Our limit is $1239/month for rent on a 5 bedroom place (we can't live in a smaller bedroom home because of Utah Fire Marshall Law.) Here in Utah County that will barely get you into  2-3 bedroom apartment. If you don't believe me you are welcome to look it up. We have to stay here because Kevin is in the middle of his Masters degree. If anyone has a job available for my hubby that will immediately pay minimum of $4000/m after taxes then I will gladly kiss welfare goodbye. Until then, help those around you and stop judging because chances are they are stuck in the welfare cycle too and have given up hope. 

May we all be one in Christ and Christ in us.