More about the New Job

When I shared the exciting news about my husband's job offer last week, it was a pretty brief announcement. I wanted to share just a little bit more about the circumstances leading up to this offer, and let everyone know what an incredible God thing this is!

If you read my blog regularly you know that my husband has been unemployed off and on for two years, with short term contract jobs here and there (he is a software developer). These last two years have been a hard road, and I won't lie, sometimes I have felt discouragement and even despair. As a believer, I KNOW that God is sovereign and always in control, and I also know that He loves me and His plans are for my good, but I wondered more than once why He didn't just swoop in and "rescue" us, when it was so within His power to do so.

He allowed us to come as close as possible to losing our home without actually losing it, to go hungry a few times, to have to say "no" very frequently to the children, to stay home because we had no gas in the vehicles and no money to buy more, to wrestle futilely with the bills, and cry and pray and experience extreme stress.

Yet I have learned, and am still learning, so many lessons from this experience. People would always say to me, "God always provides". Those are true words, and He always did, but hardly ever in the way I expected Him to. Sometimes He chose not to provide the funds for a certain bill, but instead He gave me the grace to make the phone call and explain why it was going to be late. Sometimes He chose not to provide grocery money when I thought we really needed it, but He provided the creativity and resourcefulness to make meals out of what we had. He allowed our children to see my husband and I cry, to overhear snippets of "desperate" conversations, but in the process He helped them see what it looks like to cling to God in the midst of pain, when I felt as though my faith were hanging in shreds. GOD DOESN'T WASTE TRIAL AND PAIN. Isn't that just absolutely amazing?

Through all of the hardships of the last two years, God has been so constant. My heart is so full of praise to God for WHO HE IS, and how unchanging He is! I feel so humbled that He loves me enough to invest this much "lesson" in me, but there have been many times I wished the lesson didn't have to be so painful.

So, fast forward two years. Last week, out of the blue, my husband got a call from the man who had been his immediate boss at his former job. The job he got laid off from two years ago, and hasn't had a direct hire job since then. The job whose layoff started us on this difficult journey. (just want to be clear which job we're talking about here! ;-)

This man and my husband met together, and he proceeded to offer my husband his old job back. Direct hire, non-contract, with benefits, no need to interview again. ISN'T THAT AMAZING!!!!!!???!!! It sort-of feels like we have come full circle.

So what was the point of the last two years you might ask? Why did God choose to take us on this particular journey? I don't know the complete answer to that, but I honestly would not trade it. I learned more about God and His relationship to me during these two years than I did during any year of plenty. My viewpoint on money has changed dramatically (and I thought it was fine before!). I will be able to look back on these years when the next trial comes, and know without a doubt that it is God's nature to be faithful. He cannot be unfaithful.

To those of you who have prayed faithfully for my family, thank you. Two years ago, God was good. A year ago God was good. And today, God is good. As you feel led, please pray that we will continue to cling to God with as much ferocity now as we have during unemployment. It is so easy to put our trust in a paycheck, and not in the Lord. Yet He knows that we need income to live in this world, and He has chosen to provide that for us in a unique way. We are glad, and we thank Him!