How Paul Surprises Me

If you don't know me in real life, Paul is my husband. We will be married 7 years this October. We have been together 14. He rarely does something unexpected we have been together long enough that we can anticipate most anything about the other.

Yesterday his boss called him and told him today would be his last day of work. His company felt it made the best business sense to let him go now. That did not make sense for our family at all. It meant loosing a bunch of pay checks we needed. While we have some saved for the move we certainly don't have enough saved for the move and to live off of for a month.

I was having the most peaceful morning yesterday. At 9 am all I had to do the rest of the day was shower, walk the pooch and go have a girls day with Lilia and our friends around the corner. At 10 Paul walked into the room hyperventilating. Then he told me what was going on. He was angry and hurt. I was just angry. The day dragged on and we started figuring things out. What we haven't sold yet that has value that we could sell. We even found some odd jobs to pick up. He researched unemployment.

Then Paul called his boss and gave him a hard time. He plead a good case on employee loyalty and hard work. After a lot of negotiating his boss agreed to see what else could be done. Paul is now working until the current pay period ends. He has secured all of his paychecks and commissions except for one. The side jobs we have lined up should cover that. He also has medical coverage until the day we move.

I am floored. I never anticipated his company bosses having a change of heart, but they did. We had a lot of people praying for us yesterday so I think God gets some of the credit.

So life goes on as planned until at least next Friday.

Paul over came anger and hurt to negotiate for himself and his family. That my friends is pretty darn impressive to me. I would have gone with spiteful anger. I would have told them come to my lawn and pick up the office equipment they wanted back because I was not going to go out of my way to bring it back. I would have done that immediately on the first phone call. Paul was so caught of guard that he didn't say much of anything. He took the day to process what had happened and then found a route that worked for him.

It's not a perfect happy ending but I think most of us (read that I) have a lot to learn from Paul. It was really important to him to leave this job on good terms. Somehow despite all the odds he found a way to do that and make it work for our family. The compromise isn't ideal or perfect but he got what he wanted and no compromise is ever perfect.

Today I am grateful that Paul surprised me with how he reacted and that he was able to get what he wanted.

May you be blessed with some character surprise in your love.