I’ve thought about this blog a lot over the past two years – how I should be using this “time off” to write. Yet I could never bring myself to open up a page and begin. Maybe it’s because my writing always had a conclusion, an encouragement through personal experience with God’s answers. Right now, things just feel stagnant. I don’t know what to write about; I have no answers.
When I left my job, despite the uncertainty of the future, I had high hopes. This was it, I was finally going to move on to something better and brighter! This was going to be the turning point. For my obedience, God was going to bring me into the path I had craved all along, a job where all the boxes were checked with a family life that brought peace instead of chaos!
In the initial months, the decision to resign was confirmed in my heart as I found myself finally able to get a handle on aspects of life previously thrown by the wayside. My husband and I managed to meal plan and get the house cleaned consistently. (Don’t get me wrong, it was far from perfect, but at least it was happening!) After 3 weeks, my daughter’s tantrums calmed down and we started to get into a good routine with each other. I finally started running and doing yoga again. I was getting interviews and spending quality time with my family and close friends.
But after those first few months, a sense of despair began to set in. One by one, I felt myself losing that sense of accomplishment and confidence, as things started to unravel. A job I intended to accept literally disappeared. One week I was all but promised the job and the next I was sending those trying-not-to-sound-desperate follow-up emails. Then a dream job interview lead nowhere fast. All of a sudden all of my leads had dried up and my motivation and energy to apply was lost in a deep sense of disappointment and abandonment.
A few months later, when I got pregnant with my second child, I had to stop running in the early weeks of pregnancy because of concerns with bleeding. By the time concerns about miscarriage were quelled, I was feeling too sick and exhausted to exercise. At four months pregnant, I lost a coveted job opportunity after disclosing my pregnancy. It took me two weeks to grieve the end of that interview process as I recognized this had probably been my last chance to land a job before the baby came. There I was, stay-at-home mom status staring me in the face indefinitely. I felt all my plans and hopes slipping away.
So many things happened in the months that followed and every single time I faced defeat, I felt anger at God. I knew I had no right to that anger but it burned inside my heart. Whether it was my daughter’s increasing defiance, my failure to keep up with exercise, or a gnawing feeling of inadequacy as a professional, I felt so angry that God had called me to leave my job only to leave me stranded in this role I never wanted.
The clear promise of God-given purpose I expected to receive has yet to materialize. I’ve decided to just share my process, mess and all. Not to sound too cliché, but the process is life, after all.
Believe me, I do not have peace about it. I wrestle with this reality almost daily. I’ve learned a lot about my weaknesses, especially in my faith. It has become my struggle to learn how to be content in the middle of it all and how to have a spirit of gratitude. If I can point to one thing the past two years has taught me, it is to just keep going back to God and talk to him even when you feel like you haven’t heard from him. Every time you lose your joy, remember who your source is.
pursuingHISwill 