The Best and Worst of Times

My Internet cross stitch friend, Sandra, just emailed me about some layoffs in her Internet department at Bass Pro Shops in MO. They laid off a widow with health problems who is raising 3 boys and Sandra’s immediate boss who moved there from TX a year ago to take the job. It is so sad! I read about similar situations every week. I’ve never seen anything like this as long as I’ve been alive but I know that my mom has and she keeps saying it will get better. It makes me so grateful to God that, in the middle of all of this scary stuff, He actually gave me a (for me) high-paying job that is exactly what I like to do. Many times in the past, bad things happened to us and I didn’t understand why, but now a good thing has happened to us and I still don’t understand the ways of God.

Jobs

God gave me a new job. It was a very unexpected and wonderful surprise. I was working at HRB ready for tax season to begin when a friend called and said her sister, a CPA, was looking for someone to do bookkeeping and billing. One thing led to another and I started my new job this week.

This place really is heaven to work at and I am overwhelmed that God would do this for me. I LOVE it! I would much rather work there full-time doing bookkeeping than work anywhere else or even stay at home. I love making numbers balance! It is everything I have ever wanted in a job - great people who treat me like one of their own already, the best and fastest technology, working with accounting, not having to deal much with the public. I’m given a task and then left on my own to accomplish it, without people looking over my shoulder all the time. I feel valued and respected. It is absolutely overwhelming. I would do this for free!

I've been thinking about the different jobs I've had in the last 12 years and realized that I have learned something valuable from each one and don’t regret working at any of them, not even HN (although I still NEVER want to work there again!).

Working at Sound Investments taught me to stop taking things for granted and to enjoy each day as it comes because these just might be the best days of my whole life and I don't even realize it. I also learned all about bookkeeping and accounting there. My next job was at HN, which has become the “gold standard” by which I judge all the other jobs, probably for the rest of my life. I did learn how to be a receptionist there, though, and that no matter how lousy a job might be, at least I’m not working at HN anymore.

Working at the library, I learned that there are other people even more OCD than I am and that I must trust God and not lean on my own understanding. I begged God for that job … and I learned to be very careful what I pray for from now on (because I just might get it) and that God knows what is best for me and I most definitely do not.

Working at HRB I learned a whole lot about taxes so that I don’t have to be afraid to do our taxes anymore. I learned that I adjust quite well to being “in” the world and that I can love and care for unbelievers deeply. I learned that I have skills which are valuable, that there are things I am very good at doing. I also learned that I handle one-on-one client situations well and that I’m a good team player.

So … one thing I’ve already learned from this new job is that the job I have has nothing to do with my worth as a human being. When I worked at HN, I felt like I was nothing, the scum of the earth. I wondered what I had done that God was asking me to work in such a horrible job. The working conditions were horrible - all the chairs were falling apart, the computer had dial-up Internet (which I wasn’t supposed to use), paint was peeling off the walls - and almost all the clients tried very hard to use, manipulate, and control me (when they weren't stomping out and slamming the door or cussing me out). And my boss was a chronic, constant complainer.

Now, everything is state-of-art and top of the line. The furniture is beautiful, the chairs support my back, the Internet is high-speed cable, my bosses are sweet, and the clients are “normal” people. I am in a completely different environment but I am still the same person. My worth didn’t change even though I feel a lot more valued and respected now.

It is so nice to be able to look back ... because when we are in the middle of something, we can't see the forest for the trees.