Today is August 10, 2020 and our family is celebrating!
Why, you may ask? In order for you to have a complete understanding of why, I must go back to March 2019.
I picked up the mail one day and in it was a notification from the company Josh worked for, DiTech Financial. They had filed for bankruptcy.
When Josh came home I gave it to him and he told me they had explained to everyone what was going on, but he wasn’t the least bit worried about it.
A few months later, we learned that the company had been sold but Josh’s department was told that they were going to keep them all on staff and not make any changes. He even had a meet and greet with the new owners and new bosses.
On September 15, 2019, the phone rang during the middle of the day and it was Josh.
I don’t pick up the phone during the middle of the day because Monday through Friday I am teaching my children in school, so for Josh to call me at that time it had to be important. It was.
Josh had been informed that the new company had decided not to keep his department and that their last day would be October 1, 2019.
Again, Josh was not worried. Not – in – the – least. He was calm, cool and totally confident that God had a plan for him and was keeping us all firmly tucked inside His mighty, mighty hands.
Now, you may be wondering how could a man with the responsibilities of a family with three children who are loaded with dreams and hopes for the future, be completely calm, cool and full of unshakable faith when he was told that he was going to be without a job in a few weeks?
In a word. Experience.
Josh, and the rest of our crew, are veterans when it comes to him being laid off from jobs. In fact, I keep telling him he could teach classes to others on how to handle being laid off.
In 2007 when the housing market crashed, Josh was a home appraiser apprentice. You see where this is going, right? In order to complete his apprenticeship he had to accomplish 2000 hours of work. He started off well after completely his schooling, and had been blessed with a wonderful boss whose company was based in Anthem, AZ.
Josh loved the work and did anywhere from 7 to 10 houses per week. He was also richly blessed that he was paid for every house he appraised which is not always the case for apprentices. When the housing market collapsed, he was thrilled if he got to appraise 3 houses per month.
Josh had other work that he did while still trying to accomplish his 2000 hours or apprentice work, and of course, it took him close to double the time to finish his task because of the status of the housing market… but he did it! I was so proud of his hard work and perseverance.
We didn’t see it at the time, but God had a plan.
In 2007 after the market crashed, Josh went to work for Countrywide and it wasn’t too long until they had a massive nationwide layoff of over 3500 employees. Since Josh was new to the company and landed in that 3500.
The next company Josh worked for was called Marix… I honestly have no idea what it was he did there, but he was happy and he learned a lot about mortgage investments and client service management. After about three years, Marix was sold off in pieces, but Josh was offered a job at Chase Bank as the Senior Operations Manager which was a tremendous blessing from God. He was very happy at Chase, he made some beautiful, life long friends and learned much more about his industry… which I couldn’t explain to you at all. But, after about three years of working there, Chase had a layoff and Josh’s position was one of those jobs cut.
Back in the saddle again! Giddy-up!
The layoff from Chase was much harder. The kids were all involved in sports and activities and they were just beginning to take off. Aven had been on the Sunrays Bronze Excel gymnastic team and had skipped over the silver level and was now on the gold team. Samuel and MaCaedyn were working hard on becoming first degree black belts in Tae Kwon Do and all of it cost lots of pretty pennies– pennies which we didn’t have anymore.
But God had a plan. God always has a plan.
I cannot name names, but I can say that God sent us a very special angel who blessed us so richly during that time that we did not have to take the kids out of any of their programs. Everything was paid for in full for the children. It was a miracle from the Lord and we were more than thankful for it.
Josh was laid off that time for over a year. Every single day, except Sundays, he was searching for a job and applied for over 300 of them. He took any and every side job he was offered and did everything he could to keep us afloat. I also taught private voice and piano lessons from home.
The stories for the job hunt for Josh were always the same, “You’re over qualified.” or “This position is for internal hiring or internal transfer.” And so on.
Finally, God brought him the job with DiTech and we were ecstatic because this layoff had lasted over a year. As always, Josh loved his job, the people he worked with, and he really excelled there.
By the time he got to that job, he was a changed man. I was a changed woman. We were a changed family.
We had learned to be thankful for every single blessing that came our way.
We learned to appreciate the small and simple things of life.
We had a home. We had food. We had clothes. We had vehicles, yes they were old and needed a lot of constant care, but we had them. During that time we were also blessed with a gift of our little “Hope Van”, but that is such a beautiful story, it deserves it’s own blog so I will save that for later.
Our children didn’t have to give up their dreams and their goals and we didn’t have to give up the way we wanted to raise and home-school them.
Yes, we had struggles and challenges, but we were never poor. Through it all, God was there, teaching us, guiding us showing us we could trust Him for everything. God was good. God is good. God will always be good. All the time. He never, ever fails.
Now, you may be wondering why on earth our family has gone through so many layoffs.
People who have beliefs in other faiths that teach about karma and the like might think that Josh wasn’t a good man, perhaps he was getting pay back, what he “gave around, came around” or something like that. But that is not what we believe.
I can honestly say that my husband, Josh Cox, is a very good man. And I know exactly why we went through all of these layoffs.
They were periods of preparation, training and testing, though we did not realize it at the start, we certainly know it for sure now.
For those of you who don’t know us, our family has a nonprofit organization for children in need called The Huggabear Children’s Project, Inc. We started that organization right after Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005 and in 2008, during the midst of a challenging recession, we filed our application for our 501c3 status. On June 5, 2009 we received our declaration letter from the IRS that The Huggabear Children’s Project, Inc. was an official 501c3 tax exempt nonprofit organization in the United States. That was a great day!
One of the many things that we learned through all these layoffs was how to be better givers because we know what it is like to be in need of help.
We learned how to truly walk by faith. The definition of faith can be found in Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”
Let’s repeat that last part, “certain of what we do not see.”
To walk by faith, truly walk by faith is not something easily done. It takes practice. You can’t just talk about it, or just sing about it, or just post scriptures with beautiful backgrounds about it. You have to do it. You have to walk it. We learned how to do it.
We learned how to walk by faith and faith alone. It is not easy, I can tell you that, but boy is it life changing for the better!
If you haven’t walked the road of being laid off for a length of time personally, there is no way to truly understand all that it involves. It really is an experience you must have with a family to be able to fully understand. That doesn’t mean that you won’t have or have had other challenges which could require walks of faith. Not a partial walk, not an occasion walk, but a full throttle walk of faith. Not being able to see at all what was ahead. At times, not hearing any word. Not knowing what was happening or going to happen. Just free falling through space and time believing and trusting that the Almighty hand of God would be there to catch you.
Trust. That is what we really learned through all of the layoff days. While our faith was increased we had to learn the difference between faith and trust. In my opinion, faith was easier to learn. I have always believed with my whole heart that God’s Word is truth and I have developed a strong personal relationship with my precious Jesus through the years. I know He is alive, real and sovereign. I know ‘With God all things are possible.’ (Matthew 19:26). I know that nothing is too difficult in all the universe for the God who created the universe. I know He holds my life in His hand and that of my family and most importantly, I believe Jesus Christ died for my sins because He and my Heavenly Father God, love me more than I could possibly imagine.
But trust… trust can be much harder to learn. You see, trust is different from faith because while faith is in the believing, trust is in the waiting. With trust, you have to learn to let things go that you cannot fix. But isn’t that the hard part? Letting God have total control so He can orchestrate what He wants accomplished? We all have had the experiences where we want to keep things in our own hands so that we can fix it. We can set things right… right? But God has a plan and He always knows best.
I often teach my children when they would bring me a toy to fix but sometimes while watching me work on it they would become impatient and take it back so they could work on it themselves. When they were small, this happened from time to time and so I was able to use it as an analogy for how we are with God with our problems. If we give something to God and completely take our hands off of it, then we are completely trusting that He is working on it. But… if we keep taking the problem back and try to fix it ourselves then we take it out of His Mighty hands and He cannot do what needs to be done. We frustrate His plan with our will instead of waiting for His will.
This is one element of trust. Giving the problem to God totally and completely.
The second element of trust is in the waiting.
In the world we live in everything is fast. Fast lanes on the freeways, fast internet, fast food, fast service, fast delivery. We have become a very impatient society because we want what we want and we want it now. But that’s not how it works with God. To completely trust in God with a situation, you must give it to Him through prayer, claiming the promises in His Word that He will handle it and then… you must be still and wait. Psalm 46:10 ‘Be still and know that I am God.’
This is where my personal struggle was. I needed to learn how to trust God completely. I had strong faith. I knew that all He had to do was speak a job into existence for Josh and it would be his. My trouble was waiting on God’s perfect plan to be accomplished in God’s perfect timing.
We went through some hard days during Josh’s layoffs. We lost a beautiful home. We had to sell a truck, we spent all our savings and we had to declare bankruptcy. Financially, we lost all we had. We know what it is like to live on welfare, to have food stamps and government health insurance. For us it was a completely and totally humbling road to walk, and we did it several times.
During the recession of 2007 we moved in with my mother and all five of us shared one bedroom, closet and bathroom. We lived that way for over two years. During the Chase layoff we sold off even more possessions, jewelry, anything that could keep our family afloat. God had to strip us down of all material things so that He could rebuild us to understand what was really important in life and its not about things.
Yes, there were challenging days for sure but I wouldn’t trade any of it. Not a single day. Because everyday we learned something. We learned appreciation for the things which were most important, our family. We learned to appreciate everything we had and we also learned that a simple life is much more rich and fulfilling. Precious days and time with our precious children is what we had. I still was able to home-school our babies and had the blessing of not missing a moment with them.
We also saw the best of humanity from our friends and loved ones during these days. People who saw our circumstances and came selflessly to help us during those times will never be forgotten. I often hear people talk about what they would do for charity or to help others if they won the lottery. I always think to myself when I hear that, but what are they doing now? These beautiful people who came to help us along this road are those people who are not waiting for the lottery. They helped with what they had and I pray that God blesses each and every one of them. To these special people, you know who you are, we are so thankful.
Josh and I would hear of stories about children who were battling life threatening illnesses, children who had lost a parent or the unimaginable; parents who had lost a child and we saw just how richly blessed we were. We never had to live in a shelter. Our children were never hungry or without clothes or shoes. We always were able to see a doctor when needed and our children always had toys, entertainment and education materials. We were never poor. We were never destroyed. We were always blessed.
As I look back upon all of the years of preparation, I give praise to God. There was still so much more happiness in our days than sorrow. So much more rejoicing than mourning and so many precious moments and memories that we will cling to for the rest of our lives.
One of the reasons that I believe Josh had this last test was because of the dream that we have for our Huggabear Children’s Project, Inc. ministry. We want to build a nonprofit Huggabear Farm. A place where love, joy and imagination grows. A place where children who cannot afford to ever walk into the doors of Disneyland during their childhood or any other them park or perhaps even zoo, could come and enter for free. We want to provide a place where families who are down trodden and families who are not can all come and spend a day playing, laughing, learning, imagining and forming precious memories with their children. Investing in what is the most important treasure you will ever have, your family.
This is, I believe the reason that we had to be tested a fourth time with a fourth layoff.
We had learned to walk by faith, totally and completely. With NO worry, NO doubt and NO complaining! And God filled us with great joy daily– even during this pandemic!
We had learned to be grateful for everything!
We had learned to trust God completely and free fall through His time and space to land when and where He wanted us!
We had learned how to be better givers!
We had learned how to give more compassion for others!
We had learned not to repel the problems that we faced, but to embrace them and walk through the storms holding tight to God’s unchanging hand to learn all that he wanted to teach us while in it.
Now, to take our ministry to the next level, we had to be tested again. We needed to prove ourselves worthy of this kind of blessing because we are going to step out into the world someday and build something that has never been done before. The Huggabear Farm will be the first of its kind.
I can say with confidence that we passed this test. There was not one day where any of us were worried, concerned, scared, or complained about our circumstance. That is not to boast about us, that is to boast about the mighty work that God has done in us. We all knew God would provide for our family and provide Josh with a new job. We knew it was coming and we thanked Him for it. We thanked Him daily for the BEST job that Josh ever had!
In fact, the only people who knew about Josh not having a job were people who asked us about it. We didn’t discuss it because it wasn’t something that troubled us.
So, now I will get back to why we are rejoicing. Last month my beautiful children, Aven, MaCaedyn, and Samuel had a special prayer time of their own for their daddy to get a job. I had reminded them that when their daddy got the job at Marix it was because Aven and MaCaedyn at the ages of 4 and 2 years old sat in the corner of our room with their little pink Precious Moments Bibles and they told me “We are praying for daddy to get a job.”
That very Wednesday he was offered the job at Marix.
Yes, friends, there IS power in prayer and especially those of precious, innocent young hearts.
After remembering that story, the children, now 17, 15 and 13, went to prayer and I kid you not, that very day Josh’s old boss from DiTech called him and offered him a position with her new company. He began work today, August 10, 2020 and we are more than thankful. His office is also located in our bedroom which is another great blessing during the time of the Covid Pandemic 2020!!!
The job is with a company called Cenlar. His position is called Default Client Liaison Manager. He had his orientation today and learned that this company is employee owned and after a year he will start receiving Cenlar stock!
What a miracle! In a time of a pandemic where there are so many people laid off or companies have shut down, God provided Josh a job. And not just any job, it is the BEST paying job he has EVER had with the BEST benefits he has ever had!!! Praise GOD!!! THANK YOU, JESUS!!!! We give ALL the glory to YOU for this gift!!!
I can tell you that there is power in prayer my friends, and I hope that you when a difficult or challenging time come to your life, you will turn to Jesus. He loves you more than words can say and He is there, waiting for you to let Him help. I have much more to say about walking by faith, but I will save that for another blog. This blog is mainly to give thanks and praise to our Almighty God, Jehovah Jirah, our Provider for all that He has done for us, all that He is doing and all that He will do in our future!!
God always has a plan, life is so much better when you let Him take the reigns!
God bless you and thank you so much for reading! Remember, JESUS LOVES YOU!
Angelique La Fon-Cox 