Sometimes When Life Hands You Lemons...

....you need to ask for HELP! No matter how uncomfortable you are, how embarrassed you are, how frustrated you feel. We have been through a super tough 8 months and we thought we would be out of all this by now. We have had to lean on people in a way we never have. God has provided so much through a lot of you and we are SO THANKFUL!

THE LONG VERSION (Scroll down for Short Version)

BACKSTORY

When we moved to the area years ago, Jeremy got a job working for a small business in Durham. Over a span of almost 5 years, he worked his way up to general manager and was looking to take over a Raleigh franchise of the same business. His boss was a friend of ours and wanted him to eventually take it over. Right around the time he wanted to have Jeremy transfer to running that location, COVID hit. In hindsight, we are very thankful that the opening was postponed. In 2020-2021, Jeremy basically worked the job of about 3-4 people and he didn't have any help. He looked for a long time to find an assistant manager, and when he finally found one, Jeremy realized that he wasn't actually doing all the things that he had told Jeremy he was going to do to help him. All during this time, Jeremy was exhausted, but his boss kept telling him: "You're doing a GREAT job!" "This business is where it is today because of you!" So, it was a BIG surprise to both of us when his boss called him into a last-minute meeting at the end of the day, the day before we had planned to go out of town for vacation. At this meeting, everything his boss was saying Jeremy was failing at were the same things he had praised all the months before! He told him he was letting him go as general manager even though Jeremy's work ethic had not changed at all. His boss also stated that it was HIS fault and not Jeremy's that the business was in it's current state. So confusing! In one meeting, we went from making the most income we had ever made in our marriage to nothing. It was very hard and hurtful as we thought this guy was our friend. To change from giving pats on the back for everything Jeremy was, doing to telling him that he isn't up to par was really hard to swallow.

Our vacation was already planned, so we stuck with it. We went to visit our closest friends who have 5 kids. Our kids and their kids love each other, so we truly get to relax! It's funny that they have been there for us, helping us heal, during some of our toughest times as a couple. (We love you guys!) It was such a nice time and exactly what we needed! After we got home, another friend of Jeremy's offered him a job to work at the Lake Norman franchise of the same business he had just gotten let go from. It was very encouraging to have a friend basically say he disagreed with the guy over here in Durham and that he valued Jeremy's work ethic. We looked for homes to rent or buy over that direction for months, but the housing market decided to go nuts and we could not find anything in our budget. Jeremy agreed to work through their busy season to help them out. We planned to transition at the end of that time back to a job we would already have lined up here. We wanted to get out of the labor jobs he had always done and move to a less physical position as we are not in our 20's anymore. But, before we got to the end of that time, Jeremy's mom passed away very suddenly. He went down to Louisiana alone for the funeral because that's all we could afford. That was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do as a wife. Not being there when your husband is grieving the worst thing to happen in his life so far was awful! When he returned home, it really made no sense to travel back over to finish out the last week or two in Lake Norman. They were feeling confident moving forward without his help, so we planned to get a job over here ASAP! When Jeremy was in Louisiana, he ended up hurting his left shoulder protecting someone. When he came home, he kept making comments about it being sore. The following Monday, he was out doing yard work with the kids and was raking up the grass clippings. He felt a *pop* in his shoulder and was then hit with horrible pain. It took a few weeks to get an MRI and there was no way he could work while we waited because he could not move his shoulder at all. The MRI showed that he had almost a full-thickness tear in his subscapularis tendon, a tear in his supraspinatus tendon, his labrum had a small tear, and his bicep tendon had dislocated. No wonder he was in so much pain! He had surgery in September and was just recently cleared to go back to a desk job. His mobility is really good, but his strength is gone and he still has pain after using it a lot. While he has been at home, he has been going to counselling to help him work through some things he found out at his mom's funeral that were kept from him when he was growing up. In January of this year, his grandmother passed away as well which brought everything to a head again. While working through and processing all of that, he was diagnosed with depression. He has had anxiety since he was a kid, but it has never been this heavy. He is still in the trial phase to see what medicine will help. Because of this diagnosis, he has not returned to work yet. If you have ever suffered depression, I'm sure you can understand why. I've been working through some depression of my own as I'm sure you can tell with the obvious haircuts needed in our Christmas morning photo above! The medication I had been taking stopped working for me, so I have spent the past year and a half trying different medications and waiting to see if they work before transitioning to another one. We both feel like we can finally see that little pinhole of light at the end of the tunnel. Through all this tough stuff, we are reminded how much we lost when we lost my family. You don't realize how much of your mentality feeds off of the encouragement your parents give you until it's not there anymore. (For those of you that don't know, my family stopped communicating with us almost 10 years ago because they didn't agree with the decisions we were making, none of which were moral decisions) We sat and talked one day and we were wondering, why is this so difficult for us?? It finally hit us that having family there to call and check on you, be a shoulder you can lean on, be someone you can bounce ideas off of is SO VALUABLE! We have a lot of people here that love us, but, sadly, that family support cannot be replicated by anyone other than your mom and dad. Currently, we are looking daily for jobs, looking for any other ways we can generate some income, and just trying to keep our heads above water.

SHORT VERSION BEGINS HERE

NEEDS

Now that you all know what happened and why we are in this situation, we can talk about what we need. We had a wonderful Christmas with the kids, much more than we expected. Thank you so much to those of you that helped make that happen! We were able to scrape by until our tax return came, and we thought that would be an answer to a lot of our prayers. We decided to use it to get caught up on all our monthly bills and pay off some debt we had incurred. We are now left with our past-due rent and our landlord (who is a friend) has recently let us know that he needs that amount paid off as soon as possible. He has been SO KIND and forgiving and we have hated that we put him and his family in this position. We just couldn't figure out how to make it happen. Currently, we owe our landlord $13,500. Man, that number is so LARGE! We have explored options over the past months and we found out that the county will help, but only if you have an eviction letter and a court date scheduled. Our current home is 1800 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, and has doors only on bedrooms and bathrooms. So, we are busting at the seams with 9 people and a 100-pound German Shepherd trying to share that space. If we move forward to get help from the county, we will have an eviction put on our record and that will remain on our record for 7 years. If we HAVE to go that route, we are willing to do so. Living in this size home while our teen boys get older and bigger, and our little girl is starting to need her own space...I just don't know how we will make it work. We are asking for more than the rent total because that will give us money to pay off our March/April bills and hopefully support us until Jeremy finds a job.

We realize that putting this out there may change some of your views about us, but we are literally out of options. Our church has helped us a lot through this and they are discussing the possibility of helping with this expense as well. If they are able to help at all, we will definitely subtract that amount from the total need. Presenting this need this way was also a way we can be accountable to you. The amount we need and the amount we receive is available for anyone to see.

Having this debt paid off would be wonderful, but more than anything, we wanted to ask those of you that will, please lift us up in your prayers! Living through hard things this day and age is tough. It feels like everyone knows your personal business with the internet at our fingertips. It was really hard to do, but we decided to embrace the awkwardness and trust that those of you who know us will see this for what it truly is....a cry for help.

Thank you so much for making it this far! We appreciate each and every one of you and we hope that we can be on the other side of this situation soon so we can help others! Thank you for your prayers and consideration!