In the meantime…

Reflecting today, my mind is drawn to a time nearly nine years ago. For me, it was a time of change. After being out of the workforce for nearly two years, it was necessary for me to return.

I had little college experience, and plenty of work experience. I put my resume together and realized  there appeared to be a gaping hole of unemployment. One of which could easily be explained if given the opportunity, the problem however – getting an interview. I remember praying many prayers and filling out applications for anywhere that was hiring for the necessary Monday through Friday daytime hours I needed. There was one job specifically that stood out for me, one that I knew if given the opportunity, I could do it, and do it well. I filled out the application, time passed, and I heard NOTHING! My heart sank, and with it so did my confidence.

My lack of education and gap in employment seemed to serve as an insurmountable obstacle. Searching one day I ran across an opening to a business I did not want to work for, but the hours were perfect and the pay was great considering my education. I took an application, went home and prayed. I prayed. I prayed that God would give me a job, this job if it was where he wanted me to be. I told him if he would give me any job, I would take it and do whatever I had to do to provide financially for my family. I got the job. The day I accepted the job, I was called in for the interview I had been waiting for…for the job I knew I could do if they could just give me a chance. I went to the interview, and I kept working the job I had accepted. It was an awful fit, but I set my mind that God gave it to me so I was going to make the best of it. Two weeks of stress doing a job I was not designed to do, one that was so against my personality that it is almost funny to think back on, two weeks I did it until I received a call. The call was a breath of fresh air, sunshine, rainbows…all things wonderful. It was a call offering me the position I truly wanted. A position that offered a substantially higher rate of pay, in which I got to do something, I actually enjoyed doing, and I could start whatever day I wanted.

That day I walked away from the job I disliked, and I walked away from it with a deep appreciation for living ‘in the meantime’… ‘In the meantime’ is defined as until something else happens. I accepted the first job as an in the meantime job, and that is exactly what it was, it was a means of providing financially for my family until something better came along.

I am reminded that this is a fact of life. No one particularly cares for these spaces of time, but rarely is life about what we want it to be, sometimes we simply have to live ‘in the meantime’. Jesus taught,

He who is faithful in very little things is faithful also in much.

God used this experience to teach me reliance on Him. That if I would just have faith in Him as my provider that He would reward my faith, and He did it in an overwhelming way. Maybe you are ‘stuck’ in a place of living ‘in the meantime.’ A place that is causing you stress, bitterness, anger…what if you being in that place right now…is a place where God wants you, a place where He is trying to teach you something much the same as He was teaching me? If you are finding yourself in such a place I encourage you to do what He is asking of you and…Choose Him.

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