A time for everything

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven....
a time to tear down and a time to build..."  Ecc 3:1,3

I got fired last week.

You would think that a 39-year-old woman would have experienced this before.  But I haven't.  In all of my adult life, I've never had a boss who wasn't plain ecstatic to have me.  Not bragging or anything, just sayin'.

Then I decided to take a sales position.  Granted, I took it after months of an unsuccessful job search and out of sheer desperation to escape my marital home.  I think I would have shovelled manure if someone had offered me that fine opportunity.

I'm not saying that my experience in sales has been totally unredeeming.  I took a position as a community relations director for a senior services company, so it wasn't your stereotypical sales position.  I got to spend most of my time relationship-building, which I think is one of my true strengths.  And the really awesome part was I got to help the elderly and their families.  I have been able to make a real and tangible difference in some people's lives over the last year.

Also, I came to some conclusions.  I saw that I loved the helping-people part (which I already knew about myself) but hated the sales quota deal.  Not knocking it, because I know businesses have to stay afloat and be profitable.  But there was something that felt infinitely wrong about devaluing the time spent with a family to educate them on resources and vital next steps that needed to be made when it didn't result in them becoming a paying customer. 

But that's why I guess sales is just not my bag, baby. 

So the long and short of it is that I wasn't making my sales quotas, and I got canned.  And I have to say that, while the timing stinks, I'm not that upset about it.  Because truthfully, I don't want to sell home care for the rest of my life. 

And maybe God is trying to get my attention and turn it toward something else.

What that will be, I still am not sure.  I am waking up every day making a decision not to panic at the quickly dwindling, already tiny balance in my checking account, and keeping my eyes and ears open for what is next.  I do realize that I may have to do some more not-fun jobs to get to where I need to be.  And I've decided that that's OK too.

After the last three years of my life and all I have lost, it would be very, very easy for me to become monumentally discouraged at this setback.  There are only so many blows to a girl's ego, financial and emotional health and security that she can take, after all.


But there's a funny thing about loss.  Life mysteriously unclutters itself.  There are things, STUFF, you always thought you needed that suddenly lose their shine, and it gets really simple.  What you need is redefined.  I'm not saying it is an easy process, to have everything stripped away.  Torn down.  That it doesn't sometimes feel cruel and unnecessary.  But if you know where to lean, it doesn't destroy you.  It just changes you.  

Have you ever read Ecclesiastes in the Bible?  Not to get too preachy on you, but seriously, you should.  It is really dark when you compare it to, say, Psalms.  But full of truth.  Life is not all rainbows and bluebirds.  This trips up a lot of people...especially people of faith.  Including me.  I went through a big-time shake down in my mid-20's when my life got really, really hard.  When I look back, that was nothing like what I am experiencing now.  But when you're 25, things are a bit more dramatic, and you feel entitled.  And I got really, REALLY ticked off about it, because I did everything right.  I was a very, very good girl.  And my life was still downright falling apart.  It was just so unfair.

What a drama queen.

So I decided that HEY, you know what I really should do is tell God what He can do with His I-know-what's-best-for-you-and-my-will-is-perfect-and-maybe-I'm-trying-to-teach-you-something and do it my way.

And that worked out SUPER.  That's sarcasm, in case you missed it.

So.  I've come to believe some things - you may not subscribe to these beliefs, and that's OK.  But this is where my journey has led me: 

1)  Life is very, very hard.  It is not fair.  Bad things do happen to good people.  I may get to the end of my life and still not understand why these things happened.  That sucks.
2)  God is smart.  Smarter than me, and smarter than my stupid boss.  This would make it really dumb on my part not to trust Him.  Some days I do a really good job of trusting.  Some days I don't.  But He loves me either way.  When I make really stupid choices in my moments of not trusting Him, He allows me to reap the consequences of my stupidity while still giving me little gifts of redemption to let me know He still loves me and can turn anything around if I will let Him.
3)  God never allows suffering for nothing.  There is always a reason - always a purpose.  I'm not saying I totally understand that, or am even at peace with that.  But I do believe that.

Am I happy to be unemployed?  Not at all.  I spend most of my days either out hand-delivering resumes or filling out applications on line.  I am praying my butt off for a new direction to become clear.  And listening.

The Bible tells me there is a time for tearing down. 

In time, I have to believe that the rebuilding will come too.