Counting my blessings

I have a few quiet moments right now, which is rare, as is the case for most moms, and my mind's been to wandering to the many blessings I have in my life. Not the huge obvious ones like my family, the Gospel, etc., but small simple ones.

Let me give you an example. (WARNING: this may be a little lengthy so you might want to skip to the end if you just want the gist of what I'm saying without reading the novel.)

We've been in the hiring process for our business since July. When we're in the hiring process that means that I work at the office until someone is hired and trained. Usually a couple month process. The end of July we hired a gal for our new Weiser office and she began training in Fruitland with our employee there. Our Weiser office opened the end of August and our full-time Fruitland employee moved to Utah the next week. That left me working in Fruitland, and going to Weiser occasionally to continue training our employee there.

Hyrum started Kindergarten during all this, which also meant that my teenage babysitters went back to school. I was wondering how this was all going to work out when I noticed April at church on Sunday. April had babysat for us earlier in the year, before she left for college, while I was training another employee. She wasn't suppose to be back for several months. I asked her sister, one of my Laurels, if she was just home visiting and she said that she was actually moving home for the semester. No joke, this happened the exact weekend before I was no longer going to have a babysitter and had no idea what I was going to do. (April does medical transcriptioning, but was hoping to make a little extra while she was home so babysitting for us worked out perfect for both of us.)

We finally hired someone for our Fruitland office the middle of October. I figured that gave me a month and half to get her trained while April was still here, and come January our offices would be set with two well-trained employees and I could focus my efforts elsewhere. Not so. On December 8th, our gal in Weiser gave us her two weeks notice. That threw me into a scramble knowing April was leaving in a few weeks. Not to mention it was the holidays and everything was crazy enough.

A couple days later I asked April if she was sure she wanted to leave in January and she responded with, "Oh yeah, I forgot I haven't told you that I'm staying." I'm pretty sure I didn't stop grinning the rest of the day. It was like a huge burden had been taken from my shoulders. I had no doubt that the Lord's hand was in this, and had been from the beginning. Now I could relax and take my time finding the perfect employee and making sure she was well trained before I left her.

Well, this last Sunday (January 4th), right after we arrived home from Washington, April called and let me that something had come up and that she needs to move to Texas next week. Life turned crazy again. I had interviewed several applicants for our job, but none that had sparked my interest. Meaning that we had no employee hired, let alone trained. The only possible positive thing was that April mentioned a friend of hers was home from college for the semester and would be willing to babysit until she found a job. I called the friend and she said she was filling out applications, but thought she'd be able to babysit next week at least.

I interviewed a great applicant two days later (yesterday) and hired her a few hours later. She starts tomorrow and I think she's going to do a great job. Another blessing from the Lord. One more blessing happened this morning, Jessica, April's friend, called to let me know that instead of looking for a job she would just like to babysit for us as much as we need her.

One word: Perfect.

Looking back that's how things work out for us. We know we're on the Lord's errand and it's obvious that He blesses us in our efforts to do what is right. I am grateful for His tender mercies in my life.