It’s been
seven months since I moved back home.
And it’s about time I get to write
this blog post.
I took a job in North Carolina
after college and proceeded to be miserable for fifteen months.
I can look back on that time now
and see the things I needed to be taught by God, the things I desperately
needed to learn on my own, and how being utterly alone for a little while did
both tremendous good in so many ways for me.
I thought about leaving NC a lot
during the year and a half I was there. Working a terrible schedule, coming
home to a cat and no friends every single night, and dealing with drama from
multiple coworkers makes one question what the point of everything is.
But I held on. My parents supported
my every decision, but they were worried about me like good parents should be
and encouraged me coming back home.
But I still held on.
I’ve never been very good about
hearing God’s voice, whether through instinct or hearing the Holy Spirit
whisper to my heart. My usual thoughts go something like, “Was that God? No, it
was probably just indigestion.”
But when I was in North Carolina, I
kept having this feeling like I should stay till December. It wasn’t like I saw
the word December written in a burning bush or physically heard God say, “Stay
till December,” I just thought, yeah, that makes sense.
So when December came, I knew that
it was time for me to leave. Through different things that happened the last
month or so, it became obvious it was time for me to go. I had learned
everything I was going to learn, and I so strongly felt that God was telling me
I was done there. That He had a new plan for me.
If I had known His plan was for me
to live at home with no job or prospects for seven months, I might not have
moved back.
So thank God He didn’t reveal that
to me.
It’s funny, I actually had this
confident thought that I was going to live at home for three months, find an
awesome job in Knoxville, and move out by the fifth month.
I thought giving God three months
was ample time for Him to find me a job. I wasn’t even asking for the perfect
job. I just wanted to work somewhere I could be proud of.
It is very possible that I will
look back later in life on these past seven months as being the most trying
time of my life.
I won’t bore you with all of the
emotions and ups and downs I went through since January. It would take too
long. What I will do is tell you about the past two months.
Actually, I’ll start about three
ish months ago.
I decided a little over three
months ago that it had been too long since I moved home, that I needed to do
something about not having had a job since December. So I thought the best
course of action was to get a random part time job.
It’s not all that hard to get a
part time job at the mall when you have a college degree. So I quickly found a
job at a clothing store in the mall, went in for an interview, and was offered
the job the next day. Which I didn’t take.
In between me going home after the
interview and the call the next day, things got bad. I hate saying phrases like
mental breakdown or emotional meltdown because do you know how dramatic that
sounds? I have worked ridiculously hard since high school to not be that
dramatic kid, and I will violently push aside any hints of drama that come
about these days.
If you need a laugh or just a break from all this talking, here's something to brighten up your day.
So let’s just call it a slip.
I slipped on my own brain and fell
down hard.
I was angry at God for having to
resort to working at a clothing store in the mall. I was angry my college
degree that I worked my butt off to get suddenly seemed worthless. I was angry
that I have never not had to work
hard to get something for myself. I was angry that I was a 24 year old college
graduate living at home with my parents without a job, single as can be.
I could feel myself becoming a
bitter person, and that’s honestly something I never thought I would become. I
didn’t deserve to have a part time job, I deserved to be living in New York
writing short stories and making millions of dollars. I deserved to be in Los
Angeles working as a casting director for big blockbusters.
So I turned down the part time job
and let myself become overwhelmed with bitterness. It was so much easier that
way.
Fast forward to a little over a
month ago. I still have no job, I still am living at home.
This is a little bit what I looked
like.
I’m not even sure what spurred me
on to start volunteering. Maybe it was watching my mother volunteer at the
hospital every week or thoughts back to when I volunteered at a hospital in
North Carolina. Whatever it was, I abandoned all thought of a part time job to
fill my days and started looking for a place to volunteer.
That’s when I stumbled onto The
Salvation Army.
For those of you who don’t know,
The Salvation Army of Knoxville houses men, women, and children. Which means
they need to feed the residents three times a day. They have a few paid workers
who make the food and serve it, but they desperately need help. That’s where I
came in.
As odd as it may sound, I fell in
love with The Salvation Army from the first day I volunteered. It’s a simple
shift: Help prepare the lunch, serve the lunch cafeteria-woman-style to the
residents, help clean up, help start dinner.
Maybe it was the fact that I
finally wasn’t always thinking about me me me. Maybe it was the fact that even
though some of these men who lived there who I served lunch to have miserable,
sad lives, they can still be cheerful as they go through my lunch line, still
crack jokes with me and make me smile, still thank me countless times over for
doing something so simple as feeding them a meal.
I think sometimes we forget just
how powerful a smile or a laugh or a silly, corny joke can be. When these men
come through my line and tell me jokes that don’t even make sense but they
crack themselves up just telling it, when they smile at me, some of them
missing teeth or just having scary grins similar to that of Michael Fassbender,
when they tell me I should come more than two days a week because I’m the
nicest cafeteria lady they’ve ever had, I go home with a full heart.
I was having a conversation with a
woman the other day from a church I’ve been attending and we were talking about
how I don’t have a job and volunteering and everything, I found myself telling
her that I was glad right now I didn’t have a job because The Salvation Army
has been the best thing in the world for me.
I couldn’t believe the words came
out of my mouth.
On the drive home that night, I
felt for the first time in seven months that everything would be okay. Yes, I
was constantly stressed about finding a job, yes, I was still living at home,
yes, I didn’t have much going for me in my life, but it was okay.
Sidenote, that song has become my anthem. So thanks, Matt Thiessen.
I gave my whole life to God several
years ago, and got a tattoo on my body to remind me of that: “It is no longer I
who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
I got these words tattooed on my
body for a reason: To have a constant, visible reminder that it doesn’t matter
how I think my life should go. It belongs to God.
If he wants me to be without a job
for seven months, okay.
Please understand, I do not in any
way say those words lightly. I teared up just writing them down. It has taken
me seven months to be able to really really really believe them.
I found Psalm 37 today completely
by accident, and I think David, the author, must have found some kind of time
machine, traveled to our time, observed my life the past few months, then
written this chapter for me and about me.
“… Trust in the LORD and do good…
Take delight in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the LORD; trust in Him and He will do this: He will make
your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday
sun. Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him… Refrain from anger
and turn from wrath; do not fret – it leads only to evil… The meek will inherit
the land and enjoy peace and prosperity… The LORD laughs at the wicked, for He
knows their day is coming… The LORD upholds the righteous… The wicked borrow
and do not repay, but the righteous give generously… The LORD makes firm the
steps of the one who delights in Him; though he may stumble, he will not fall,
for the LORD upholds him with His Hand… I was young and now I am old, yet I
have never seen the righteous forsaken… The LORD loves the just and will not
forsake his faithful ones… Hope in the LORD and keep His Way… The salvation of
the righteous comes from the LORD; He is their stronghold in time of trouble.
The LORD helps them and delivers them; he delivers them from the wicked and
saves them, because they take refuge in Him.”
I know this post is very long, but
bear with me just a moment longer.
I have a job now. It took seven
months and 217 job applications, but it is here. It is only temporary for right
now because it’s through a temp agency, so I am only guaranteed two months’
full time work. So I still can’t move out of my parents’ house, I still can’t
be an Independent Adult, whatever that means.
But I don’t even care.
If this job doesn’t work out full
time, if in two months the company decides not to ask me to stay on, I will be
sad, but I won’t fall into despair.
God knows what’s up and what He’s
doing.
I might think He’s crazy, I might
question His timing, I might yell and scream and cry at Him for making me go
through incredibly hard and lonely times, but in the end, my life is not my
own. It belongs to God. And He is big enough and generous enough that I should
always always always trust Him with it.
It sounds so simple when you write
it out like that.
I’m taking this quote out of
context, but there’s a Sherlock Holmes story where Sherlock yells at someone,
“Your life is not your own, keep your hands off it.”
How very, very true, my darling
Sherlock.
