Arrival...Refrigerator?

FILLY IN BLUE
Horse Painting by Laurie Justus Pace


24 x 36 inches of Oil on Canvas

Contact me for pricing and mention the title of the painting. Laurie

Yes, I was up too early this morning ( four a.m.). Terry took off Mother's Day and is working for someone else today. Life at American Airlines...go figure. Still trying to digest FURP. Families Under Reduced Pay. Pilots, Mechanics, Flight Attendants...matters not...we are all FURP. Mechanics were making $55,000 in the early nineties. Just before 911 we had been on a wage freeze for 10 years...and FINALLY saw a raise in pay of about $20,000 a year that brought us into reality for all the cost of living raised over the prior ten years of our salary freeze. (Yes it was cold) Finally we could breath and not take the calculator to the store every time we grocery shopped. We had kids in college and a house note to pay. We had this wonderful increase for about 18 months. WHAM... the company was failing... all of us took cuts; cuts in benefits as well as pay and we were knocked back down to the 1992 wages again. We are still there and have been for six more additional years. We definitely qualify for FURP. Could you manage your household on your salary from 1992? In four years we will still be at the same wages. Work twenty years with frozen wages?

I left teaching in the public school system in 1997. I have not looked back. Totally stepping out of the boat in faith to walk on the water, I turned to my art. I have taught art out of my home since 1982. I stepped up my classes and I turned back to producing myself. God is good. He has provided so much growth for our family and the additional income has covered the college loans and the extras in our lives. Teachers here in the great state of Texas make between the state base of $30,000 a year and up to maybe $60,000 depending on their length of employment. Teachers are grossly underpaid.

In life I have told my children to work at something they love; better health but not necessarily better pay. Morgan told us his senior year in college that once his college loans were paid off he wanted to live on a beach and make hats. Honestly, I did not laugh. This was not funny then and is not funny today. I have 10 more years of his college loan left. I do not think I will laugh then either. That was four years ago...he is still looking for direction and a job with a future. HATS??

Are you where you are suppose to be in life? Are you a tree planted in the Living Water? Psalm 1:3 Tying in the thoughts from John 15:5-8 where the words are "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch that doesn't produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. You have already been pruned for greater fruitfulness by the message I have given you. Remain in me and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine and you cannot be fruitful apart from me."

If you are going through trials right now keep this verse close at heart. Know that the Lord's plan is not our plan and that he is pruning and shaping our lives to bear His fruit as we grow strong in his love.

Grace

Laurie

"They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season without fail. Their leaves never wither and in all they do, they prosper." Psalm 1:3.