Food Stamps

I don’t like to give out a lot of details about my life, but for this blog, I am going to let everyone in on a little secret. I am twenty-one years old and married. My wife is nineteen years old and pregnant. We had been married about eight months before we found out she was pregnant. When we first got married I had a pretty good job lined up, the contract was signed and I was ready to go. I was working at this place full time making pretty good money. In fact, almost half of my income could go straight to savings while I still got a lot of fun little toys. My wife had a job as a waitress at a local restaurant and actually enjoyed working there. We were pretty happy with our life.
After living this life for a while, I lost my job. The program that was funding my job took a big hit and was shut almost completely down. I did not lose my job because of anything that I did wrong, the economy just felt like collapsing. As upset as I was about losing my job, I didn’t let that get me down. I immediately went looking for a job. I found a job that would get us by and I applied for the position. I knew some of the people working there and was confident that I would get the job. I was interviewed and later hired for the position. I was glad to have a job, but I had taken quite a pay cut. After asking my advice, my wife quite her job due to sexual harassment issues and we began living on a single income and savings. We were less comfortable, but God has a way of always providing.
I found a job opportunity for an entry level position at a very wealthy company in my city. The job required a test and an interview. The economy was doing very poorly at this time, and so, for seven or eight positions, this company received almost 1,500 applications. After weeding out almost 1,400 applications, they sent out letters to the 100+ candidates left. I was one of these candidates. I received a letter telling me to come take a test to see if I could proceed to the interview. I took the test and passed. Only an interview to go and I would have a full time job paying nineteen dollars an hour and getting guaranteed raises that would put me at twenty-five an hour within a single year. Only around twenty people made it to the interview portion. I went to my interview and felt pretty good about how well I did, only to receive a letter telling me that a better candidate had been chosen. I learned later that there was a very strong possibility that I was turned down because of my age.
After six months of living on a small income and saved up money, looking for jobs the whole time, we decided that we could not continue living life on our income. We applied for food stamps, something that I am still embarrassed about. My saved money was almost completely gone and we had no choice but to rely on other people. My wife was already pregnant by now and was now on state health insurance. I found a new job, but it didn’t pay any better. Still, I enjoyed the work and decided that even though I wouldn’t make any more money, it would be worth the move later.
So, here I am, living on a minimal income at a part time job, still applying for a second job, and studying full time at the local college. I have a temporary job that will help me to catch up on the bills that I still owe (yes, I am out of savings and now in debt) and I am only getting food thanks to food stamps. I got a call today from my wife (on the cell phone my parents are paying for), she was crying. She had been yelled at by a woman behind her because she was using food stamps to pay for our food for the month. This woman was upset that her tax money was going towards my pregnant wife’s food. This woman yelled things at my wife until she was in the parking lot, all because she is upset about these food stamps. My wife was very upset and even more embarrassed.
I have told this whole story, which I am not proud of, to say one thing. I know that there are people out there who are just lazy, qualify for food stamps and don’t even try to get a job, but there are also others of us out here who work our very hardest to get jobs and work even harder to keep our jobs, and we literally can’t afford to put food on our own table. For the females out there, here is a little insight for you to remember: There is no worse feeling for a man than to know that you can’t provide the most basic needs for your family. Sitting there being helpless makes even the strongest men crack.
I’m not telling this story for sympathy. I have two reasons for telling this story. The first reason is to inform everyone out there that some of us using food stamps are using them because we need them. I hate having to use food stamps, but it does put food on the table. Secondly, I want to say that through this entire ordeal, God has always provided for me and my wife. There have been several times when I didn’t have the money to get by and somehow God provided money for me. God will always provide for those that are faithful to Him. I’m not always faithful to God, and He still provides for me.
In Christ,