Thanksgiving for Brynn

It’s been a rough year in the Paulin household. My husband was laid off for about half the year, my grandma was on the verge of death for two months, we lost power due to a storm in July and lost the entire contents of our big chest freezer, we had to replace the washing machine, and spend nearly $3000 on car repairs, deal with the State of Michigan’s ineptitude which resulted in a suspended license though a ticket was paid but cost us unjust fees, we’ve spent the year without medical or dental insurance while we’ve figured out how to get meds and pay for doctors…

On and on it went. 2008 has sucked. But you know what, I still have a lot to be thankful for. Last month, my husband got a new job that he loves and pays better. My grandma lived and is doing well. The food was replaced…no big deal. We have a wonderful washing machine and I can wash laundry without going to the laundromat. The car drives great. The State still sucks, but I’ve made a fantastic contact in the local office who I know by name and who’s very helpful in clearing things up.

There’s adversity and there’s silver lining.

And there are other blessings. Can I count them? No. My family members are healthy. I’m healthy. We have a house to live in and we’re not in danger of foreclosure nor are any of our utilities shut off or going to be. We have food and clothes and can live in relative comfort. We have jobs in a state where thousands are unemployed and even more go to work daily with the fear of losing the job they have.

Though, my brother-in-law flies missions over Iraq on a 3-month rotation, he’s remained safe. We’re obviously thankful for that. We’re thankful that we live in a free country where we have opportunities, where we can move about in relative safety, where we can worship where we want to, where we have freedom of speech and the opportunity to read and write what we want to…where we are allowed to vote for a leader as we did this year.

So when the Paulins sit down this week at our Thanksgiving dinner, we will look beyond all the bad things that happened this year and we’ll be thankful for all the good, for our friends, for our families and we’ll look forward to a great 2009.