Limbo-ing Along In Life

I have NEVER been flexible! I always blamed it on the fact that I didn’t take gymnastics when I was younger, but let’s face it, my limbs were just not made to bend backwards or contort into weird shapes. I am a straight, up and down person that bends in the ways my hinges/joints tell me to bend.
(This made me think of the Primary song… “I’m all made of hinges cuz everything bends.
From the top of my head way down to my ends….”

I find it ironic, with how inflexible my body has always been, how flexible my LIFE must be.
When Flynn moved away to Mordor to begin his new job at the hospital, we had to be flexible
with living apart, with not being able to find suitable housing so the whole family could move there,
with juggling our finances as we supported two homes
and driving 1,500 miles every month.

I had to be a more flexible parent since I took on the role of both mother and father while Flynn was away.
Flynn had to be more flexible and patient as his children grew up and he wasn’t here to watch (he is
a hands-on parent and this was hard for him).
The children had to be flexible dealing with parents who were stressed and trying hard to keep life as
normal as possible and working at maintaining a strong family relationship.

And then he lost his job.
And we found our life bending in a new way.
Would he be able to find new employment?
Would we be able to meet our financial obligations?
Since he lost his job at Christmas time, would we be able to provide Christmas for our family?
What did our future hold and where would we end up?

Thankfully that period of time was short-lived and after only about a month,
Flynn found his current job East of Nowhere.
It was just supposed to be an interim job, while he desperately searched closer to
our home here in Zion for suitable employment.
We realized that we didn’t want to leave this area.
We like living close to the mountains, my national park and we like LOVE
our neighbors and neighborhood.

Sadly, there were NO JOBS to be had.
He applied at our local hospital, at the big government employer west of town,
at private companies.
Jobs are hard to find.
No one said, “Hey, come work for us!”
But his interim employer said,
“We love you! We want you to stay!”
It would be stupid to say no, wouldn’t it?
Especially since we saw Heavenly Father’s hand in this.
We realized that as much as we HATE leaving, we have to!

So we became flexible again in having Flynn visit every other weekend
(that was short lived…we realized we absolutely couldn’t be flexible in that
and we see him every weekend again),
in wrapping our minds around living even further away from home and family.
We had to start looking for homes again in an area that has
even fewer homes available to rent or purchase and what is available is
sub-par and GROSS!

And then Flynn realized he wanted/needed to apply for a job in a different hospital.
It’s with the same hospital management company that currently employs him
(whom he LOVES working for, BTW).
This hospital isn’t as far east as the one he’s currently employed at.
Instead of living East of Nowhere, we would simply be living in the Middle of Nowhere.
(I really must clarify… both of these towns are heads and tails better than Mordor!)
The hospital that he applied at is bigger and the town is bigger.
There are better advantages for the whole family in this situation.
(His current boss is aware that he’s trying for this position and supports him.
That’s how great this organization is!)

So, Flynn had his first interview.
They are only interviewing 4 people for the position.
The interviewer said he did GREAT!
They were VERY IMPRESSED with him.
They’d let him know in two weeks if he made it through to the second round of interviews.
In the meantime, we don’t know where we’re going to live.
Are we going to East of Nowhere? Or Nowhere?
We can’t buy a house.
We can’t decide on a final moving date.
People are constantly asking us what our plans our and we say,
WHEN WE KNOW, WE’LL LET YOU KNOW!

The two weeks were up last Friday (May 18).
Flynn heard on Monday that they needed another two weeks to decide.
That’s the first of June.
We had tentatively planned that Scooter and I would move in June.
Will that happen now?

I’ll tell you what will happen now!
We’ll keep bending and living our life in LIMBO.
We’ll keep smiling.
We’ll (try to) wait patiently to see what Heavenly Father has in store for us.
We’ll pray harder that when it happens we’ll be ready.
I’ll keep packing boxes and cleaning out closets and shelves.
We’ll enjoy the time we have left here in Zion
and enjoy (even more) the time we have to spend with Flynn,
because after spending so many months without him, it’s harder and harder to be apart.
(Families shouldn’t live this way!)

But I also wonder:
we’ve had to bend and be flexible while we’ve lived in LIMBO for so long,
how will it be to stand up straight?