During her stay with us, Diana witnessed our lives systematically falling apart. I had already given up my career, my home in a city I loved, and a close circle of supportive friends to move to a bigger city for reasons that seemed to make sense at the time.
I took on a business venture to fill the void that seemed to govern my life, and failed miserably within months. I gambled on success and lost. I remember sitting out by our gorgeous pool wondering if I tied a deck chair to my leg, would it be enough to keep me under.
Failure was the most horrible thing I had ever felt – and that is saying a lot, considering all I’d been through up to that point in my life. We lost our beautiful two-story brick home with our huge, back-yard swimming pool (perhaps that was a good thing after all), along with all our savings. I was horrified at what I had done.
All I wanted was to bring our family success, and I had brought financial disaster down on all our heads. We moved to a different neighborhood, and tried to pick up the pieces. Diana stayed with us through all of this.
Meanwhile, my marriage was unraveling. “Just a couple nights away will warm things up again,” I told myself. So I planned a really romantic getaway for just the two of us. We left our toddlers at home, and off we went for a surprise ski-weekend getaway. I gave my husband new ski equipment for a gift and planned the whole thing. I was determined to breathe new life into our marriage. But, the only thing colder than the windy summit of that mountain was us.
Soon Diana's meager rent, along with some babysitting money I brought in, was all we had to live on. Probably one of the lowest points in my life was the day we had to bring home food from the food bank at our little church. I felt like my life was over. And in a way, it was.
But it was a beginning. It was how I began to rely on the love God has for me. I was just starting to realize that Jesus is all I need. I was about to embark on a journey -- which continues to this day -- which is revealing to me all the myriad of ways that Jesus is enough.
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