In our twelve years of marriage, Ian and I have had several experiences where our training, experience, and willingness to perform a job or task was there but we were denied the chance to do so.
I’ve not been able to develop some semblance of an answer for why these situations have happened- I’ve just tried to accept the fact that it was a door being closed on us for unknown reasons. Typically, a different path would be opened to us soon after, but not always (ever?) a preferred one.
Soon after graduating college and getting married I found myself unable to be hired into the only profession I’ve ever wanted to be in- education. I was top of my class with gleaming recommendations from my advising teachers but that didn’t matter. It was 2008, at the height of the market crash, and I was newly relocated to a town with its own education graduates from a nearby university.
Nearly eight years later, the path that we had taken suddenly became a dead end. We were already living in the Middle East doing something most people would be unwilling to do and living so far from friends, family, and our home culture, but the Lord made it abundantly clear that it was time to return to the US. Even though we were willing to stay. Even though we were happy in a place many wouldn’t be.
I really struggled after this one. I asked myself constantly “What was it for? What was the next path going to look like?” Every time I saw a glimpse of the “why” we were made to return home I would cling to it even if it was just the tiniest shred of a reason.
Most recently we had another gut punch. We were ready and willing to start fostering only to find out our bedrooms were too small. Discouraged, we felt like if a family who has a stable income and a loving home and well thought out reasons and intentions are not able to participate in foster care, then who can?
It doesn’t sit well with me. It goes beyond my logical capabilities.
I do know this: I’m going to keep being ready and willing. I’m going to be looking for needs, thinking how I can help fill them, and keep being ready to step up. Even for the hard things. Even for the messy things. Even for the not so glamorous things.
If I’m never “chosen,” for a task again I can feel peace about it because I know my children will have seen parents who were ready and willing to serve.
Even more beautiful will be the moment when the Lord chooses me for a task that I never saw coming, that I wasn’t quite prepared for, but that He provided for ways for His glory to be shown.
2 comments:
Oh, I’m so sorry fostering didn’t work out! That’s a hard one to take. It’s difficult when you can’t quite figure out the “why” of a situation. I love that you are trusting that He knows the reasons though. ❤️
I'm so sorry. That is such a huge blow and doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. Is there a way to contest the size issue?! Have someone out and show them...like, another opinion?!
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