“Along with the morning sickness came panic, fear, and doubt. What on earth were we thinking? This is completely illogical.”
Anticipating Sarah
“You have another child who is ready to come into your family,” the prompting was so clear it was as if I were hearing spoken words, yet there was no one around. A sweet feeling of peace enveloped me and an excitement to welcome this new little one into our family. I spoke to my husband Lewis who also felt at peace with the decision and soon I was expecting another child. The feeling of peace and excitement lasted just long enough for it to be too late to turn back. Along with the morning sickness came panic, fear, and doubt. What on earth were we thinking? This is completely illogical.
We were living in a tiny apartment in my parents’ basement. We were parents of two young children ages 3 and 15 months. We were so poor we called it the “granola days” because we couldn’t afford much in the way of groceries and were living off food storage and I couldn’t think of anything to make with wheat and the only thing I could think to do with the oats was make granola. There were a few months where we ate granola for breakfast, lunch and dinner until I could improve my repertoire of cooking with the basics. We were grossly underemployed even though we both had earned college degrees.
My husband wanted to be a professional pilot. He needs to fly like he needs to breathe. It is his passion. It is also very expensive to obtain the necessary training and experience to get hired. He had worked his way through the necessary licenses: private, instrument, flight instructor, commercial, multi-engine, etc. However, in addition to the licenses you need a specified amount of “flight time” in order to be considered for hire. A single hour in a twin engine airplane cost $120 at the time (1995) and is at least twice that nowadays. In order to be considered you need to log at least 200 hours in a multi-engine airplane along with another fifteen hundred hours in a single engine airplane. The cost of the training seemed insurmountable. Every penny of our meager income was needed to further Lewis’ training so that he could eventually get into the career of his choice.
Lewis came up with a plan to purchase a very small twin engine airplane called a Cri Cri. He found one for sale that cost only $10,000. That kind of money was way out of our reach, but if he could convince two other pilots to be partners in the project, we just might be able to borrow enough to buy the plane and then use it to build the necessary flight time. The plane was underpowered, but ran very cheaply and brought the hourly cost down from $120 to more like $12 per hour. If we bought this plane, we might be able to reach our objective. It was such a tiny plane it looked like a remote control airplane and the plan was risky, but we did it.
Lewis was working several part time jobs and nearly every cent went to pay for the loan on the airplane and to pay for the gas to fly it. I was home caring for our two little children and budgeting carefully to make by on our tiny income. It was hard. I was often discouraged. Even though we were doing our best, it seemed that we could never get ahead. I didn’t think we’d ever get a real job. I didn’t think we’d ever be able to get a home of our own. I thought we were doomed to be poor forever.
This is where we were when the prompting came to welcome another child into our family. For a short period of time, my worries vanished and all I felt was excitement, then reality set back in and I was terrified beyond my ability to express. How could we care for a third child? We were dirt poor at is was. I felt completely overwhelmed and even a little angry at God. What kind of joke was this? Had I been deceived and what I thought was “inspiration” was simply a delusion of some kind? What are we going to do now?
We kept moving forward little by little, doing the same things we had been doing before and feeling like we were going nowhere when suddenly things began to change.
Lewis had submitted a book manuscript to McGraw-Hill and although it was rejected, they were impressed enough to ask him to submit another proposal that would better fit their needs. We worked together to create the proposal and it was accepted. Then he was finally granted an interview at SkyWest Airlines and was eventually hired. A few months later we were able to buy a simple and humble home.
All these changes came within a few months time, and most happened during the time I was pregnant with Sarah. As the months progressed I went from feeling panic to feeling surprise and gratitude. The things I desperately wanted (a job, a house, even a book) and thought I’d never get, did come. The blessings came after a trial of our faith. It didn’t mean that it was easy or effortless or all our problems were suddenly over, but things worked out.
