My cousin's husband's job just dissolved overnight (like ours did recently), and I couldn't sleep for worrying about her, so I got up to write her a letter and thought I'd post a copy here because it includes things I've wanted to tell a number of people I love who are suffering right now.
"Dear E----,
I hope you're doing okay. I couldn't sleep for worrying about you. I have been in your position more than once, and it's ulcer-inducing! It's cry-myself-to-sleep territory.
But here are a few things I've learned that help me (you probably already know all this stuff and aren't as stressed, scared, and discouraged as I was/have been, but it makes me feel better to say it.):
*God CAN give you another job overnight. I've seen it happen. If he doesn't, it doesn't mean he doesn't love you. He DOES love you. And he has a plan. Trust him. Even when it's hard (like 2 years of going to bed lonely and hungry in Vegas hard). It won't stay that way. (If I hadn't waited on God's plan, I honestly would have missed getting to know you again--and that would have been a huge tragedy for me!)
*One of the best pieces of advise my mission president ever gave me was, "When the bills come and you just can't pay them, throw them away. They'll come back next month."
*Elder Holland told a story once of being young with small children, trying to move away to go to college and being penniless and having his car break down not once but twice on the trip, and him feeling so discouraged. And then years and years later driving by the same spot and looking back at his younger self and saying, "Don't give up. It gets better. There's joy ahead."
*I have learned to stop thinking about tomorrow quite so much. Many many days when I couldn't see how we'd possibly make it through, I stopped and asked myself, "Am I okay right NOW? Then that will have to do." And it did. And I was okay the next day, too.
*Blessings are miracles. They might not put bread on the table, but they put it in your heart.
*Read this talk. It quite literally changed my life about 2 months after Tim lost the only job he'd ever had that he truly loved and that paid enough to keep us alive and in shoes. Your sis, C---, said it changed her life, too.
http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=15674bb52a73d110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD
*This one is mighty powerful, too: http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=70dd1a01e8d43210VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD
* And, finally, this one, written by a righteous relative:
http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=fa8318e7c379b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&vgnextoid=024644f8f206c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD
..."
I came across that last talk near the back cover of an old magazine from my collection one night as a teenager when I was sorting my antique books, and I read it and cried and cried because I had just been disappointed in something and it spoke to me, and then I discovered it was written by my grandfather's uncle, and that cemented the talk in my mind forever. Even now when I read it I cry. (Same goes for the other two, actually).
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