I've been looking for a job for six months. Not constantly, but sometimes when the house was clean and we had food to eat and I had done everything I needed to do and somehow still had some energy left over, I would go to Netflix and put on a television show and get out my laptop and look for jobs.
Uuuuggh. It was awful.
Everything I was qualified for I didn't want to do. Out of a hundred jobs, a handful might seem like something I would be interested in, but then of course I wasn't qualified for them. When I found the rare combination of interest and experience, I would spend the lengthy process of filling out the application, only to never hear back from them again. I have some wonderful friends who kept their ears open and told me about jobs in their companies when they became available. I usually got a little farther with those, maybe even an interview, but then once again: nothing.
Time and time again I asked God, "Is it too much to ask to have a job that I would enjoy doing?" And time and time again God answered and said, "Find your worth, find your happiness, find your contentment in Me, because that is really the issue here, not your job." And of course, He was right. But of course, I'm not perfect, so my job did matter, more then it should. I felt stuck, trapped, like I would have to work yet another holiday season in retail, miss more birthday parties and small groups, and forever be tired.
And then came a small little ad with hardly any description, just that it was a part-time administrative position. I wrote about it on Day 122 (http://the365daysofjoy.blogspot.com/2012/09/day-122.html), because what caught my eye was that they wanted a hand-written letter instead of a resume sent. Two days after I sent it, I got a call for an interview for the next day. That was last Thursday. This morning at 8:00, I got a call.
I got the job.
Obviously I haven't started the job yet, but from the description it sounds like the perfect fit for me. My strengths, my interests, my ideal number of hours rolled into one package. This is a job I might actually enjoy going to, and not just go because I have to. I haven't said that in a long time. I was looking over the hiring booklet and almost got giddy when I saw that I get holidays off, and if the holiday is on a weekend I get Friday or Monday off. That might not seem like a big deal to you people, but it's a big deal to me. No more waking up at 5:00 in the morning. No more working overnight shifts. No more not knowing what my schedule looks like two weeks from now. I'm so happy!
To be honest, I don't feel like I had completely learned my contentment lesson from God yet. I was mentally prepared to have my job search drag on and on as I struggled to submit to God in this area of my life. But God's not like that. Lessons are important and sometimes they have to be learned the hard way, but God also loves to bless His children, especially when we least deserve it. He's not waiting for us to be perfect, because He knows we will never be, He's just waiting for the timing to be perfect. And although I'll never fully understand it, I'm so glad that He does.
May you find joy in God's perfect timing.
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