rainbows and unicorns.

After the dust settled and the initial shock and numbness of our situation had subsided, my guy and I decided it was time to crawl out from under the covers and go for a nice long walk.

The sun was out that day.  It was just him, me and our mutts, out for a stroll, breathing in the cusp of spring and trying to decide what our next steps would be as we placed one foot in front of the other on the pavement beneath us.

"It'll be fine!"

This has always been my mantra...or at least since the last time our lives got flipped on end.  I remember repeating this over and over as we walked.  Maybe it was the rhythm of our gait or the simplicity of the phrase, but each time I said it, a bit more peace crept in.  By the time we had reached the end of the trail, we knew one thing to be certain: everything in our world, with the exception of each other and our girls, were just that...things. 

The conversation of actually doing something about those some things didn't happen that day on the trail, though.  That conversation came about following one of our Sunday services.  You see, it was then that I realized that God had stepped in...and He was about to smack me with a whole lot of perspective.

* * * *

Walking into church that Sunday, I had joked with our pastor about needing a happy message.  He had said to me, "We're in the book of James.  I hate to tell ya, but it's not gonna be all rainbows and unicorns."

As we sat in our pew, juggling coloring books and Goldfish crackers, PK began to speak.  As he started out, I remember feeling heat rising out of my head.  The sermon was based on a passage in James, specifically James 5:1-6.  I sat and thought about the men, sitting amongst their expensive cars, granite countertops and high-priced toys, that had stripped our family of not only 'things', but basic needs.  While they sat and ate $25 steaks, we sat and wondered how we were going to feed our children in the coming months.  They hoarded dollars by cutting my guy lose for having looked at something beyond where he was, while we pulled pennies of seat cushions in an effort to pay our mortgage.  I seethed.  I relished in vindication.

And then.

"Everyone of us is so rich."

As PK went on, the seething began to seep out of me in tears and in it's place, realization and peace fluttered in.  Had our riches become our identity?  Had we defined ourselves by our possessions?  Had we fallen into a race with the Joneses?

It wasn't rainbows and unicorns.  But it was necessary for me to hear.

And as we made our way home, to our house with all of it's things, I turned to my guy and said, "I think we need to call the realtor."

(NOTE: You can check out PK throwing it down here or below.  Start the video at 9:50...if you make it to 28:35, you can picture me sitting in the back pew, sobbing, squeezing my guy's hand and picking Goldfish crackers out of our two-year old's hair).