Chagrinned pt Deux

My dream job ended in January of 2009. I chose to see it as a blessing as my dad was in his last days. I had enough money to live on, so I fully turned my attention to my parents, grateful that I could. Dad passed away March 19^th, 2009, and those two months were precious and beautiful.

Of course, the MS really flared during this time and with the Michigan economy the way it was, I couldn’t find any contract work. In February of 2010 a friend told me about a part-time job in a call center – a major step down from my writing work – but something. This job would begin in April, but as I had gone through my savings, I figured I’d make it work, with God’s help, until I got my first paycheck.

On my way to the interview I prayed that God would keep the MS from being very apparent, and help me to have energy for the interview. I also prayed that He would do something that was all HIM. I was thinking maybe He’d connect me with someone who needed a writer, or perhaps introduce me to a man; just something that was totally a God thing.

I was able to walk into the building without stumbling, phew! I was meeting with my friend for the first part of the interview, and almost the first thing out of her mouth was “We have a full-time position that would start on Monday (this was Friday). I know you were thinking part-time, but we really need this position filled. Would you consider full-time?” Well, that sure came out of the blue - perhaps a God thing!

I took the full-time job, claiming that line in the song “I am weak but He is strong.” I was frustrated that I would be exhausting myself for an entry level position, but I was grateful to get paychecks and to have insurance for the first time in eight years.  

 

There was very little face-to-face interaction at work, and since I was working 40 hours, I had to cut doing anything else, including even going to dinner with my extended family. Oh, and the one-way walk from the handicapped parking to my desk was a quarter of a mile! I was lonely and exhausted, and I started asking why.

All I did was go to work, come home and go to bed. I tried to look at the work as an opportunity to bless the people I would speak with on the phone, but I noticed that I wasn’t absorbing new information the way I always had. I blamed the exhaustion, but it burned that I wasn’t performing the way I was used to and even finished the first 9 months as a “partially meets” employee, which meant I wouldn’t get a raise, and was ineligible for promotion. All for a quarter of the income I had working 20 hours a week as a contractor. Seriously, why?

In my prayers, I told God that I was looking forward to my chagrinned moment – discovering what beautiful good there was as a result of it all. Well, it was on it's way!