[Link to Part 1]
Day 40
Back to early-mid 2023.
I was waiting. Everyone who knew me was waiting too. They checked in with me moment by moment, which was kind, but very similar to being nine months pregnant. You have no control over when you have the baby, but feel like a watched pot that never boils.
Then it finally happened. The first glimmer of progress. A job posted that I had been waiting for.
As summer progressed I was in a lengthy process for this role, which I felt passionate and excited about. It clearly aligned with God’s calling and words for me. From the outside looking in, it was like the job had been created for me. It fit the scope of my life and ministry experiences well—so much so that my former colleagues called it a “no brainer.” Jeff and I felt anticipation for what God might do as this application process unfolded.
Prior to the posting, other opportunities came my way. Early on, I was even given the opportunity to write my own job description out of my sense of call, but something did not feel right. I held it in prayer until I finally got a clear answer to wait and take this other emerging path instead. A team of people praying for me through my transition asked, “What will you do if you don’t get this job? Are you applying to other jobs?”
I responded, “It feels like the Holy Spirit is stepping on my neck and telling me there is only one path to take. If I do not get this job, I will have a lot of questions for God. It just will not make sense.”
I should pause and say that I never heard God promise me this job as an outcome. God did give instructions to exclusively wait on and apply for this specific role. One might assume that would mean a positive outcome. This was my assumption. If, for some reason, God did not give me this job, we believed there must be something better that would soon become obvious.
As the summer went on, I made it through every hoop and stage of the process down to the final two candidates. I was eager and ready to resume work. I went in for the final interview early in the kids’ new school year–perfect timing for something new for myself. The following day, Jeff and I celebrated our 21st anniversary, anticipating a long-awaited season of change. That next morning, I received an email that gut punched me so hard it knocked me off the face of the earth. They had chosen another candidate who “God had been preparing for the job.” I have no doubt that is true, but what on earth had God been preparing me for?
The process was over.
Eight months dragged out in waiting came down to a swift rejection. Despair moved across my entire body. I had walked out to the edge, jumped off the cliff, and no one caught me. I plummeted. Like a cartoon from my childhood, I had crushed myself into a puddle at the bottom.
My husband encouraged me about all the possibilities at my fingertips, but all I could feel was beautiful clarity from the voice of God ending horrifically with a heavy door slammed abruptly in my face. Even then, I sensed how seemingly impossible it would be for me to move forward from this place apart from a supernatural lift.
In a normal application situation, at this point, you work through any disappointment, assume the best about doors closing and opening, and keep dreaming about what the future might hold. You move on to the other logs you’ve thrown on the fire since this one has burned out. But, just as I told my prayer team, I did not have any other logs on the fire. God only gave me one log and it just burned its last ember.
In retrospect, I was expecting God to bring me to door #2 if door #1 closed. If I really got this far out into two years of obedience and then this was not the final destination, surely God would provide for our family by quickly showing us the real thing we had been waiting for. Right?
At this point, I did what any person who had already been several months without income waiting on a specific process would do, I began applying to all the other jobs. In so doing, I tried to approach it with an open mind and choose jobs that overlapped with at least one clear aspect of my calling.
Day 150
In a short matter of time, I began to have interviews almost every week, a process that was like goldilocks trying porridge. Everyone I knew had desires and opinions for me about the bowls I was tasting.
A large ministry’s development director.
A director of church partnership for an institute of higher learning.
A Dean of Spiritual Development at a college.
A Discipleship Pastor at a megachurch.
A CEO of a local ministry home.
A high profile family’s covert charitable foundation.
I took the approach that if God opened doors, I would walk through them until the processes closed. I was curious as phone calls and emails came so quickly in comparison to the long, slow slog I had just gone through. But, each time, a sadness and concern would come over me. I knew that this path did not match the clarity God had given me. The unmistakable clear trajectory that began when the Holy Spirit spoke to me and sent me on a new journey never lifted.
It would have been easier if it had.
Instead I found myself in daily and nightly despair about the disorienting process I had just been through. Then, for a few hours I would have to dress nice, throw on a blazer, put on makeup and perform to my highest abilities. It was brutal.
This interview season spanned six months and yet I was no closer to my calling than before I began. In fact, I always knew in my gut that I was not supposed to be on this journey. God never asked me to leave my job so that I could go on a wild goose chase. There was no reason to leave the previous job for this kind of a journey. I just did not know what else to do.
I tried to keep an open mind in the event that momentum would start to build and God would give me a clear direction or nudge. Mostly I just found myself panicking when I became a final candidate for jobs. The morning before the Dean interview, which seemed like the best fit for me, I abruptly awoke at 4am, sweating. I was thinking about a church up the street going through a season of scandal.
“Churches…making churches healthy. I’d rather work for myself if I have to.”
I tried to show up for every interview and bring my best, but the truth is, I felt locked in to the original calling God had given me. It just would not let up.
Having interviewed dozens and dozens of people for ministry jobs in the previous decade, I knew my problem. A) I wasn’t called to these jobs B) I was aimlessly looking for work C) I had a specific vision and calling that was coming through more strongly than the work at hand. Jeff and I both agreed. We wouldn’t hire me for these jobs either.
As each door closed, I felt relief instead of sadness. But, I also felt confused and aimless.
Day 260
Sunday morning comes and Jeff and I decide to take our son an hour away to the megachurch where I will be interviewing. It is Christmas time.
A famous worship singer and songwriter comes out on the stage. Jeff and I look at one another with the same knowing chuckle. We were not expecting that!
As the worship plays, I merely close my eyes and God begins to speak to me with direction for the first time since the early part of the year.
I receive a vivid picture. Standing outside the door of my calling, I am weeping. I feel sadness all over my body as I stand in a sewer tunnel staring at a door vaulted shut like you might see at a bank. I see I am at the end this tunnel and notice there are other doors along the sides. With no other choice, I begin to ponder these other doors. They are not welcoming but they are not vaulted shut either.
I could knock on these.
But, in the distance, on the other side of the tunnel is a sense of heat and daylight. Reluctantly, with curiosity impeded by sadness, I sensed an invitation to start to take steps toward the light.
The image panned out again and I saw that the path toward the light would also put me over and above this sewer. A different access point to my calling would become available. I would be above all these doors instead of knocking on them.
I thanked God for speaking. The slow pursuit toward heat and light had begun.
[To be continued…]
