When life turns upside down, access your coping skills,
“A ll I ever wanted was a tranquil domestic life. I came from a chaotic home — my parents fought bitterly till they divorced when I was eight. My mother had a drinking problem and looking after the house and the kids fell on me. At ten I was cooking dinners and doing laundry putting the little ones to bed and making lunches. I couldn’t wait to grow up get married and get out of there.
“At 18 I married someone with exactly what I was looking for: stability. Yossi had a job and a quiet calm way about him — everything I wanted. We lived my ideal life for ten years till last year when he was arrested for engaging in inappropriate behavior. I was shocked! My world fell apart and I dropped right back into the chasm that I had tried so hard to escape from.”
We prefer clean orderly lives where events are fairly predictable and we experience a comfortable level of apparent control. It can only be “apparent control” of course because — as we all find out sooner or later — it’s Hashem Who has the control not us.
“I had been carefully squirreling away money for decades stuffing bills and coins into jars and eventually transferring them to my special savings account at the bank. I never bought something for myself or the kids that we didn’t need. I was sure that money would come in handy one day especially when it was added to the gifts we’d received over the years the investments my husband had the savings from his salary — I knew we’d always be fine.
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