Life in the Puddle

Tonight I rode my bike to the YMCA to work out.  It's like double the workout if you do that.

Not a good idea...

On the way home it rained.  Hard.  It hasn't rained in like two weeks and the sky decides to open up the ONE time I've ridden my bike to the Y this whole summer!
Needless to say, I arrive home in a big wet puddle.  My backpack was wet, my helmet was dripping and I had to peel my clothes off of me.  I was one big messy puddle.

My life feels that way right now.  At the drop of a hat, I am reduced to tears.  Sometimes I cannot open my mouth for fear that the water welling up in my eyes will start to trickle down my face.

I have been applying to jobs for about four months now.  I've applied to approximately 20 jobs in about 17 different cities in Wisconsin.  I've been to 9 interviews.  And after each interview I have received a phone call that goes a little something like this "You were great.  We loved your passion, we loved your enthusiasm.  Your life experiences are great.  You were an ideal candidate.  BUT we're giving the job to someone with a little more classroom experience."  It's also usually followed up by a "don't give up".

Encouraging and discouraging all at the same time.  After the last two "NO's" (that came within two hours of each other), I couldn't help but laugh as the tears flowed. 

But this is not a pity-party.  This is just my reality.

It's frustrating.  It's difficult to want to teach so badly and not be able to.

Obviously all this uncertainty and the frustration that comes with not having a job has left be a bit of an emotional mess.  Like I said, I can be reduced to a puddle very easily. 

 

Learning to be a puddle.

I am learning to be a puddle.

I am learning to TRUST God and not my emotions.  God called me home to the US to teach.  God has a bigger plan for my life than I can imagine.  God is going to bring me the perfect job in His perfect timing.

I am learning not to rely on my emotions or the "facts".  My emotions want to be jealous of my friends who got jobs on their first job interview.  My emotions want to give up and say "I don't care".  The facts are: I'm fluent in two languages and have spent two years working with "at-risk" kids.  The facts are: I would be really cheap to hire because of my lack of experience.  But when I rely on my emotions, that means I don't give trust to God.  So I am learning to ignore the emotions.

I am learning that God wants me to be a puddle.  When I am a puddle it means that I have given up my desires and my selfishness.  As a puddle, I can be poured into any container...I can be what God wants me to be and go where God wants me to go.

When I am vulnerable and at my weakest and in a big puddle, God uses me because I don't resist His promptings.  I am most useful and a puddle.  And so I sit in my puddle and I wait.  I wait on God to pour me into the perfect job.  The job that is perfect by His standards (not mine) in the place that is perfect for me to serve Him (not myself).

A puddle is not what I would have chosen to be.  But then again, what do I know?