Give me peace. Give me faith.

My poor blog is so neglected.  I want to put a little more effort into updating (and less pressure on myself to write *everything* down).  My last post was supposed to have been the first of a series of at least two, but we'll see if I ever finish that.  There are plenty of events to post about.

But right now I'm just feeling very discouraged and scared.  How do people afford to live?  Kyle and I live a very simple life.  We rent a quadplex.  His parents have so generously let us use their van since we have two kids in car seats and it is our only vehicle.  Kyle walks to work.  We have nothing of worth to our names... we own a lot of books, all our furniture has been inherited or gifted to us.  Our idea of a vacation has been either camping or since we have kids, staying a relatives houses.  We don't have cable or satellite, we wear the same clothing we were wearing in high school, our kids wear hand-me-downs.  We are thousands of dollars in debt, all of which is medical bills.  Those bills will keep on coming, because I have diabetes, Kyle is asthmatic, Ander and Solveig are babies and need vaccinations.  Ander is blind.  Solveig has had suspected heart problems.  We're behind on our dental and eye visits just so we can save a little bit of money.  I feel as though we skimp on food.  We stay fed, but again... we eat very simple.  I worry a lot about making sure Ander is getting a balanced diet.

At one point in the last few months Kyle's boss had mentioned that we could perhaps start renting his house and eventually take it on as an assumable loan.  It sounded perfect!  Four bedrooms so we could have more kids in the future, a yard so we could have our pets back, etc.  Tonight his boss announced he would be leaving at the end of the month and apparently his wife has already made arrangements with a real estate agent, so our hopes are pretty much dashed.

How do people get to the point where they own a home, a car, so on and so forth?  We tried to get a loan to consolidate all our medical bills so we could pay them off in a more timely fashion, but since we don't have anything that the bank deems as valuable they turned us down.  It's not that we over-spend throughout the month or anything.  By the time we pay our rent, heat/water, medical, and food the whole paycheck is spent.  It's so discouraging!

*Sigh*  As Kyle put it, "Can Jesus come back tonight?"

All we can come up with for a solution is to run to Jesus and pray.  Give me peace.  Give me faith.