Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL (don't write about the song) (04/02/15)
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TITLE: We Are In This Together | Previous Challenge Entry
By LaVonne Wood
04/08/15 -
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It all started when our automotive business began to slow down and the overheard costs continually went up. We managed to keep the business going, but fell short on the rent payments of our home.
One day the landlord told us, we had three days to vacate. Since we owned a very big building for our automotive business, we decided to move all our belongings into the shop. We stayed with a very good friend while we began construction of our new living quarters in the far end of the building. Thankfully, with the help of some wonderful Christian carpenters, we then had a bedroom and a living room to live in.
Times were still very hard, so we didn’t have the funds to finish the kitchen and bathroom. Instead, we utilized the shop bathroom at the other end of the building. We set up a makeshift kitchen in the middle of the third bay of the garage.
Although we were nice and cozy in the two finished rooms, the makeshift kitchen was very cold in the winter. We had little money left to heat the rest of the building, heating it just enough to keep it from freezing the water pipes.
It was not easy to cook our food or do the dishes. I bundled up in a heavy housecoat and then put another coat over that while I fried eggs for breakfast in 40-degree temperatures. Sometimes I would heat the plates over the frying pan so the eggs would not cool to fast before we could eat them. Rushing the meal to a small table we had set up in our living room, we ate in a comfortably heated room. Many of our other meals I put in the oven so I didn’t have to stand in the cold cooking. I told my husband it is like camping out every day, only I never did like camping.
These conditions are what really brought emotional pain to my husband. He felt so bad that he was putting his wife through this, just because of his dream of owning his own shop. Now we were in a situation where we knew no way out but to deal with what we had. We made a promise to God to never borrow another dollar or ever have any kind of credit again. Everything from now on we would be pay for in cash.
We both decided to get outside jobs to supplement the business income. Finally, bills were being paid off and savings kept mounting up. After three years, we were ready to start building our kitchen and bathroom. The future was looking bright!
So, how do I deal with this? I told my husband, “We are in this together.” We both made the decision to follow his dream. We both made mistakes that brought us into a financially bad situation. We will both trust God to help us through. I have plenty of food on the table, I have a warm place to relax and sleep. I have a wonderful husband who loves me with all his heart, and I have the Lord to love me and strengthen me every day. What more do I need? Life is good!
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To make your article more lively, you could consider adding some dialogue. And, by the way, I recommend you check out Jan's lesson on punctuating dialogue here http://www.faithwriters.com/Boards/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=38196.
Keep sharing, keep writing!
I found a tiny error in the first sentence that you might want to take care of, if you ever look to have this piece published. You have this:
How do you do it, he asked? How do you keep such a good attitude while dealing with the conditions we are living in? Any other woman would have left me long ago instead of putting up with this.
But the first sentence should read:
"How do you do it?" he asked. "How do you..." You can see that the question mark goes with the actual question, not with the dialogue tag.
This entry fit the "one topic criterion very well, and it was an inspiring read.
Well done.
God bless~