Dream Job

Sometimes when I think of my relationship with God, I imagine Him as a parent. Then I think about my own kids and the parenting strategies I use. Sometimes as a parent your kids choose to do things that you know might hurt them, like climb to the top of the playground set (I have three boys), jump into the deep end of the swimming pool, fall in love, or move away. Part of you wants so bad to stop them but then something holds you back and you think, “But what if they make it?” “How happy will they be?” “How good will they feel?” “How proud will I be?”…and either way they will be better for it. It’s an amazing thing we do for our kids when we forget our fears and believe in their dreams. That’s what God does for us!

I’m 28 years old and I’ve never had a full time job. I’ve had lots of part time ones but not a career. After I left my job as a behavior therapist a year and a half ago, I tried working at a bridal shop, which I loved more than anything but I couldn’t handle the late afternoon and weekend hours, then I kept my sisters newborn and four year old son, my niece and nephew but by month six I was about to lose it, then I got a job at the YMCA because I had friends who said it was fun and easy and great when you have kids. I worked there about four moths. At first I wondered why do I keep getting all of these part time jobs and I can’t find a career. I was a job hopper! I began praying specifically for a career and during that time I realized God wanted me to try some of my dreams so I’d be ready to follow His dream for me. I’m a planner and a little OCD (ha!) but it’s not that I don’t think God has the best ideas, I just get tired and frustrated waiting on Him sometimes. What I’ve also realized is that there’s a difference between having faith in God and trusting Him. I have faith He’s real and lives in me but I don’t always trust Him. He wasn’t going to give me a career, a big transition for me, until I was ready. God cares more about our character than our circumstances and I’ve found that He’ll continue to put you through a situation until you learn and trust Him through it. Everyday I prayed, searched my Bible for answers and everyday He told me the same thing…trust me! If you think about other significant relationships in your life like your spouse, best friend, parents, that you talk to everyday but not everyday they say something revolutionary but they’re there and they listen. God wants the same thing with us. That’s what a working healthy relationship is, you talk and listen to each other everyday. If you want someone to tell you how to feel or what to think then you go to a therapistJ So when you’re reading your Bible the point isn’t to have God tell you what to do about every little decision in the day, it’s about talking to Him, listening to Him, and learning to trust Him. It’s really supposed to be that simple but it’s hard just like marriage, dealing with parents or best friends…it’s worth it.

After applying to hundreds of jobs, talking to anyone I could about a job, and being exhausted of searching I finally gave up and surrendered to Him. I changed my expectations about what I thought I deserved or wanted to being open to anything, including teaching. I started researching teaching, then school districts and I came across a job I thought I would be qualified for and without any thought I emailed my resume. The next day I got a call for an interview, the day after that I went to the interview and the day after that I got the job. Only God can work stuff out like that. It wasn’t until I said “OK God, it’s not my will but yours”, although I’m certain He was sick of my whining everyday, He was patient and the minute I was willing to follow Him, everything lined up. Patrick Morley wrote, “Faith is not believing that God will do what you request, but that He can if it is His will.” Even when it’s very hard, when you just don’t want to, BELIEVE God is good, He does love us, and He wants to let all our dreams come true if we'll trust Him. 

Keep Walking

I've been searching for a career for months now and nothing. I don't want just any job, I want a career, something I can invest in, the thing God has called me to do. The problem is I'm not quite sure what it is and so I apply everywhere I can think of but still nothing. I pray, read my Bible...nothing. It's hard on your faith and it makes you want to quit.

When I think of quitting, I think of working out. Since I was 17 I've been working out then stopping, then starting again. Most of us have worked out at some point in our lives whether it was a yoga class, running, a sport, something physical in order to lose weight or get in shape. And most of us have tried and at some point got discouraged and quit. We didn't see the results we wanted or not fast enough or something happened in our lives where we missed a few times then never got back to it so we just quit.We do this on our walk with God too. I think that discouragement comes from unmet expectations and unmet expectations come from a selfish place in us. Something we think we deserve but don't get. Ok, I know the Old testament can be tricky to read for some of us but we all know the story of Job. His story is about a man's response. We have to let go of expectations and maintain our faith. That's all God wants from us. It's hard, even Job became angry and disappointed with God but he repented and God forgave him. It's our human nature to desire an explanation because if we know why then we can fix it. God gives and He takes away, simply. God allowed bad things to happen to Job because He knew Job could handle it and God promises to never give us more than that. He demands our best though and sometimes our best is hard to give. This is why all the little choices we make everyday are so important. We have to make a choice every moment to do the right thing and consistency is a lot harder than accuracy. It's easier, most of the time, to do the right thing in a disaster...injury, death, loss of a job, divorce. Those big defining moments are tragic but it's easier to know what to do. And it's always easier to talk about the great things God does because we like happy endings. It's nice to say after a tough situation that it was "no big deal" or "it's fine". Why does everything have to be fine all the time? Why do we think we need every moment of our lives to be fine? What about all those hard, tiny moments of choices that had to be made to get there? When every moment of a day, a week maybe months or years you have to choose not to take another drink, to hold your tongue with a boss, a friend, a family member, to forgive, to not walk out the door and stay married, to give when you had nothing to give. And maybe you made a few wrong decisions but for once you make the right one. I think if you string together enough right ones, it can become a habit and before long, you've overcome it! But God, like any other good trainer, wants to push you so if a workout becomes too easy then you have to change it. And other trials come, other discouragements; we focus on step by step to overcome, and before long we have a habit of faith. So keep walking, whether on a treadmill, a track or with God, keep walking and don't quit. Psalm 33:4 says "He is faithful in all He does" Just like when children ask, "Why?" and adults tell them "Because I said so", it's the same with our relationship with God. He wants our character to succeed over our circumstances and He'll continue to cause a circumstance until our character succeeds in it. "Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed." Pv 16:3

Shipwrecked Faith

My sins have overtaken me and I cannot see in all my discouragement, frustration, and anger; I lost God. And I didn't care but I was miserable because when I lost God, I lost peace and hope. How sad! And it seems impossible to get it all back or at least just too hard because you think "How did I lose God in the first place?" He's everywhere but it doesn't always feel like that. In fact, sometimes it seems like He's nowhere or He would have helped by now.

My first semester of college I dated a guy that went to college over four hours away from the college I was attending. Two weeks into the semester and we hit Labor Day weekend, that's three days off so I thought it would be the perfect time for a road trip. At the time, I drove a silver Miata, which for those of you who don't know, this is a tiny two seater convertible and it happened to have a small leak in a rear tire. But I was a stubborn, determined, a madly in love 18 year old girl and I was heading to Lubbock, TX. Half way through the trip my tire finally went flat so I stopped at a gas station and had some random guy change my flat. Encouraged by the quick fix, I was on my way again. Did you know that when they say you shouldn't drive too fast on a spare tire there's a reason?! Did you also know that 18 year old girls think nothing bad will actually happen to them? Well, about thirty minutes outside of my destination my flat tire blew out. Let's recap: young college girl, tiny car, blown out flat tire, in the middle of west Texas, whose parents don't know she took a road trip, boyfriend doesn't have a car or friends. I was in a pickle! With all my pride and great wisdom, I got out of my car on the side of this two lane highway and waited. Within about five minutes an older gentleman in a beat up old two door truck came to my rescue. He did not have shoes on and he was pretty rough looking but I hated to judge a book by its cover and he did have a vehicle and said he happened to be on the way to the college anyways. My angel! As it happened, he did take me to the college, we had a nice chat on the ride there, and no funny business but now the problem was how to get my car into town. I got a tow service to drive out and find my car except they made it about two hours outside of town when I had only been thirty minutes out and could not find my car. After finally calling the police I found out that my car had been hit and run over by an 18 wheeler whose driver was looking at a map and crushed my tiny silver car. I never saw that car again. I ended up giving in and calling my dad to tell the truth, ask for a plane ride home and a new car:( It's a crazy story and even now it's hard to remember it being true. I laugh when I recall it because I was so blissfully unaware of how ridiculous it was, how ridiculous I was. What I always thought was that even in a potentially scary moment, even then, God saved me. I didn't deserve it, I lied to my parents, I wasted money, I could've been hurt or killed, just to stay with a boy who, by the way, I never married. It was selfish.

When I left my dorm I had a plan but somewhere along the way I got lost and I was shipwrecked. "I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight, holding on to faith and a good conscience. Some have rejected these and so have shipwrecked their faith."1 Timothy 1:18-19 According to Webster, shipwrecked means lost or stuck usually by accident because you got off course, lost or destroyed things/possessions. It's easy in life to get so focused on the things that we want that we lose track of the things God wants for us. If you're a control freak like me, then you know it's hard to trust God. When we wonder where God is, He's right there, all around us. We want everything now and when it isn't now we think He's doing nothing but God never does nothing. He just does it in His time, not ours. When I look back on my valleys I can't say for sure where God was every second but I know when I came out of the valley I was stronger, He was there, and everything was better than before. Trials aren't a loss at rock-paper-scissors or drawing our name out of a hat, it's God teaching us, preparing us. Whether it be trust, humility, forgiveness, patience, if we remain faithful we come out better, stronger, and with increased faith. Best of all, we don't get stuck on the side of the rode in West Texas heat, hitchhiking with a shoeless man in a pick up truck;)