If life went according to my plans, I’d be finishing up the first half of my second semester of college. But my life has taken God’s path, and instead I find myself at home still trying to find a job. The past two months have been a wild ride and have introduced me to a place that I never, ever expected to be in.
Leaving school after one semester was a very difficult decision. As much as I thoroughly enjoyed my new friends and the whole being-on-my-own thing, I knew that I needed to take time for myself to heal. There were days after I made my decision to come home where I would sincerely question whether or not I was making the right choice. I would have good days and think to myself, do I really want to leave all this behind? Yet there would be bad days where I’d lay in bed with tears rolling down my face thinking why can’t it be finals week already? It was a strange position to be in, but deep down, I knew this was something I had to do. I can already say, from being home for two months now, I have experienced some things that have greatly helped me on my journey of grief that I would not have been able to experience if I had been at school. But there have also been times where I’ve missed the old routine of classes, chapel, and hanging out with my friends at school. It’s definitely a two-way street.
So even though I haven’t been to a class since December, I’ve learned a lot on my own. I realized that my faith had taken a huge blow and that I needed to come back to God and work through everything. It sounds pretty easy, but it’s been so incredibly difficult. From October 2008 to August 2009, I read a part of my Bible each night and wrote down one verse that caught my attention. I did that every night and missed only two nights out of those ten months. It was incredible and it really brought me closer to God and strengthened my faith. I’ve been trying to start that back up, but there’s something missing. I know that whatever I do can’t mirror what I did during those ten months, but it’s helping me get back on track. This great realization of my need to come back to God happened after a get together with my wonderful friends and travel companions from Costa Rica. I realized a lot of things that night, but the need for me to get things straight with God again was overwhelmingly the greatest thing I realized.
Upon deciding to take the spring semester off, I immediately started my job hunt. Things started off well – I was finding jobs that I could apply to online and even had a relative back home tell me that I had an application waiting for me when I got back home. I had probably applied to more than 20 jobs by the time I set foot back in Wisconsin. Around Christmastime, I was fairly certain that by the end of January at the latest, I would finally have a job. But January came and went with no job. February came and I landed an interview. By this time, I was certain that I had finally found a job. But when I made it clear (perhaps a little too clear) that I may only be available until the end of the summer, that promising job wasn’t so promising anymore. And here I find myself in March still with no job. I apply in person, I apply online. I’ve tried just about every job-seeking website that you can name. I’ve started looking at places that I never would have looked at two months ago. I’m getting myself in sticky situations where if I land an interview and am asked why I want the job, the only answer I’ll be able to come up with is “It’s the only one I could find.” I can’t even tell you how many applications I’ve filled out. In fact just the other day, I applied to a place online and was alerted by a message that I had already applied for that particular job. To be completely honest, I’ve felt rather depressed about not being able to find a job. There have been days where I wonder why I even get out of bed because I know that my day will be filled with empty searches for employment.
So I guess this all was a bit trickier than I originally thought. From the get-go, I assumed I would go to Northwestern for all four years of my college career and graduate there. Then things got shaken up and my new plan was to get that perfect temporary job and head off to school again in the fall. And now I’ve learned how foolish all this planning is. My plans will fail if they aren’t in accordance with God. All this time, I’ve been trying to plan out my life according to what I want. And while I’ve been busy doing all that planning, God had these plans up His sleeve the whole time. To quote an older but classic Christian song, “It may not be the way I would’ve chosen, but You lead me through a world that’s not my home…You never said it would be easy, You only said I’d never go alone.” I’ve just got to get it straight with God again and then maybe I’ll finally be able to see all that’s in store.
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