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Tuesday, July 3, 2012

For 12 years from now...

Dear Emma,
There will be times in life that you will wonder if God is real.  You'll look at your circumstances or situation and think that He's not listening or that He doesn't care.  When you start to wonder, sometimes the only thing you can hold on to are the stories of His faithfulness in other people's lives, and you'll still ask why you're not feeling His presence or hearing His voice in your own life.  There have been times that I've wondered.  There have been times when I haven't seen or felt or heard God, sometimes very long stretches of time.  That's when I've had to think back on the times when I knew He was present, and remember that He's the same God now as He was then, even if I can't sense His presence.

The past few months have given our family a story that we can hold on to and remind each other of God's faithfulness.  You will have your own experiences as you grow up, but this is one that you won't remember so I'm going to tell the story now even though you won't read it for a while.

On January 15, your dad was laid off from his job.  He really wasn't happy there anyways, so we considered it a blessing and knew that God was going to provide something better.  He's spent his time off taking care of you, and loving (almost) every minute.  But, as time passed and jobs weren't popping up we started to wonder what was on the horizon.

Fast forward to two months ago (May 7, to be exact), and I had known for a while that the job I had wasn't my long term career.  I put my head on my desk and told God that I only had two months left in me because I was drained trying to put my energy into something that I knew wasn't for me.  That afternoon I got a call out of the blue from someone I used to work with telling me that a position had opened up in their HR department because of some changes in the company.  They wanted to know if I would be interested in talking about coming back, and I knew that God was hearing me.  So, I started conversations with them, but the whole time had a nagging feeling that what I really wanted was to start an HR department at a smaller company in an action sports style company.  Well, two weeks in to my talks with company #1 I got a call from another company of just over 100 people (the perfect size) in the action sports industry saying that they were looking for someone to start their HR department.  I was having conversations with both companies and setting up interviews, and at the same time your dad told me that he had actually applied for a position at company #1 as well.

We both couldn't have worked at that company because HR can't have relatives working there, but we knew that if we both ended up getting offers we would just decide amongst ourselves which would be better for our family.  I had my first interview with company #2 but found out during the interview that they have pretty expensive benefits.  I drove away thinking that the job at company #2 would be perfect if I could have the benefits of company #1.  I got home that day and found out that company #1 had called your dad to set up an interview, and that interview ended up being set for one hour before my interview with the same company on the same day.  Because the same person wasn't hiring for both positions, there was no connection at the company that we were both interviewing.  That week, between the two of us, we ended up having a total of seven interviews.  We were both exhausted physically and emotionally, but we knew that God was shaking things up for us and had a perfect plan for our family.

I ended up getting the offer I wanted from company #2, and just today your dad got the offer he wanted from company #1.  My company initially wanted me to start July 9, almost exactly two months from the day I put my head down on my desk.  I pushed the date back to July 16 so I could take a few days off before starting, and the funny part is that your dad starts his new job on the very same day.  We'll both have first days on the same day, and that means that you'll be heading back to days with friends and family, but we're trusting God for that too.

Sitting in church on Sunday, I realized that God has heard every single cry of my heart.  It reassured me that even in the times when He seems silent, He's listening.  Don't get me wrong; God is not a genie in a bottle that we can just order around and expect an immediate response.  But, when He chooses to honor our faithfulness and remind us that He's always here, it becomes easier to see Him move in other more subtle ways.

I have so many prayers for you, but one of them is that as you look back on your life you see the providence of God and the movement of His hand even in hard situations.

I love you more than I can ever put into words.

Love,
Mommy

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