Thursday, January 15, 2009

Layoffs

The troubled economy hits a little closer to home when the layoffs affect those who are close tou you. I ask you to pray for those who are experiencing difficulties right now. Ten of my coworkers experienced this last Friday. Three in particular are especially hurtful to me as they have small children at home and with so many companies in the financial services industry laying off, restructuring and downsizing job prospects are not what they normally are.

We serve a great King and so far the friends I have talked to remain positive. A little dose of that positivity could do us good. Perhaps today would be a day to remember that even with the crushing losses in the stock market the situation in our economy is not near as bad as it has been before. Specifically I want to discourage us from thinking this is the worst economy we have seen or comparing this to the great depression or even the debacles of the early and late 1970's.

We have just recently moved to unemployment rates that are significantly higher than the historical average. Remember that we have had much higher rates many times in our past. In the great depression unemployment hit somewhere above 25%!

Let's pause to remember that we are still a nation of abundant blessings and our God will see His people through these times. Blessings today.