Article # 33 FAMILY
It was one of those perfect storms with perfect timing and with disastrous potential. A young up and coming lawyer working with one of the national firms was married to a paralegal professional. They and their three young children were living in their first home. The mortgage lender had looked past the mountain of student loan debt into the career potential of the couple. The perfect storm started in bright sunshine with an offer from a local boutique law firm. They had seen this young man in action and determined he was destined for a great career in the legal profession. They offered him a bigger salary and a path to partnership and, most important, a reasonable work schedule.
“Honey we could work on getting the loans paid off! We could get more time together as a family.”
The employment agreement was to be signed and everything was set until….. Part of the transition included a period where he had no employment at all. He needed to resign from the old national firm and wait a period of time before signing the new agreement with the new boutique firm. Life has all kinds of risks and this one seemed acceptable. They would have a short period of time with no income and no benefits. They could live off savings and everyone was healthy. All systems go. Launch into the new career position.
The perfect storm clouds began to form right after he resigned from the old national law firm. The elementary school called. Something is wrong with your daughter, can you come get her. Two days later the staff at Children’s hospital confirmed the nasty diagnosis. She has a rare disease, a genetic blood disorder. This is going to take a while and lots of money. We should also get your other two children checked as well.
“We have no insurance coverage because I am in between jobs “. He walked into the accounting department, gave them what little money they had, the keys to his house and the cars and said, “this is all I have, save my daughter”. The hospital ended up taking the house, one of the cars, all the money and set up an account to accumulate the excess costs to be put on some kind of payment plan. A nonrelated colleague friend caught wind of what was happening.
“Not on my watch.”
After lots of conversation, practical love and care, and celestial intercession prayers, a decision was made. We are with you through this. First, if we have fifty cents, we will give you one quarter and we will go down together. Second, we have a rental house which will work for a place to live. Third, we will work with the hospital and doctors and your new employer’s insurance coverages to work on a plan.
Today their youngest daughter is alive and healthy, enjoying middle age. The other two children are not genetically compromised. Hidden miracles occur every day. The lawyer and his wife are retired and living in a rural farm community. And their family is now larger to include the “not on my watch” friend and his wife who are also both retired living in an urban setting. Family was redefined. All things work together for good for those who love Christ and are called according to his purposes. [Romans 8:28 paraphrased]
Side bar note–As a financial advisor I had a ring side seat to witness this making of family up close and personal. For what it’s worth the “plan” included a workout with the medical people to limit the costs, a bankruptcy filing, and then working with the new law firm to change their group insurance to obtain coverage for the entire group with no preexisting conditions exclusions. This was years before Obama care. Finding a way through the fog is sometimes God’s way to help us develop as soulmates for one another.
Finding family like this was important back in the early 1980s. It is essential now and for what is coming. This part of building your own soul roadmap is an integral element of being counter to our current culture. These new family members may very well turn out to be your unrelated friend who steps up to the plate and shouts “not on my watch.” It also paves the way for you to be those kind of family members for someone else. This is redefining Family using the dictionary God uses.