It's a Wonderful Life

Being laid off feels a little like being in the last scene of It's a Wonderful Life, the one in which [spoiler alert] George Bailey's friends all rally around him and tell him how much he means to them and offer to help him any way they can. The first person I passed on the way in stopped me to tell me he was sorry I was leaving and that he appreciated everything I'd done and that I could use him as a reference. I had four other people volunteer themselves as references. I had emails and phone calls from co-workers who were saying nice things and asking if they could do anything and reassuring me that the past eight years of my life hadn't been a total waste. And when I accessed my personal email I had a whole slew of emails from people praying for me and offering assistance.

People keep saying they're sorry, which is kind of them. I will miss the paycheck, and I will miss the people more. But I won't miss that job. I won't miss the actual work involved (except in a glancing way...sometimes filing samples was mindlessly relaxing), and I won't miss the politics, and I won't miss the anxiety hovering over and around and in it.

For the past several months, I've had a growing desire to trust God more, to lay aside the restlessness of wondering what would happen, to be willing to take risks knowing that He is taking care of me. It was something that came to me strongly in October, as evidenced by this blog post from last November. I've been praying for complete trust, and I was telling my dad yesterday morning that I've noticed God tends to take those prayers seriously. He laughed, "And why do you think you even wanted to pray that way?" That floored me. God has been preparing my heart for this very situation before the potential loss of my job was even a fully-formed concern in my mind.

So here I am, God. I don't know what happens next, but I know you've been working it out. I'm rejoicing at the opportunity to lean hard on You and just beginning to understand for real that sometimes that means leaning on people, too (thank you for Your timing on the car problems).

I'm excited to see what's coming.