Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Be Thou My Vision


Too often we look at things in life through our own eyes when we need to be reminded that we should view things through the Lord’s perspective – His vision and not our own.  When we look at everything that is happening in this world, we can become so overwhelmed about all these terrible things that affect our lives and the lives of others. Even when we are experiencing difficult things, we will often give into our own fears and anxiety and not trust the Lord’s provision or timing to help us get through these matters.  Proverbs 3:5-6 states:  Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” 

I have had a personal relationship with the Lord for 45 years now and thankfully, every year, I have been able to draw closer to Him because of: (1) the Holy Spirit transforming me, (2) my reading, understanding and applying the Word of God; and (3) being blessed and encouraged by those whom the Lord has brought into my life to help remind me of what He wants me to know.  Unfortunately, I have had some difficult times that have caused me to pull back and not believe or trust that the Lord is in control of every area in my life, but thankfully, I did not choose to stay in that path.  It would go back and forth at times, but ultimately, I always made the choice to believe in Him and His provisions.

This past year I did have a very challenging issue happen to me.  I was without a job for nine months!  I have never experienced anything like this before, and I was truly overwhelmed so often during that period of time.  The Lord reminded me of several things about this situation:  (1) I did have a couple of months of severance pay from my former job and unemployment benefits (although it was only for 12 weeks) and some child support.  I had some money in my savings bank account to help me with my monthly expenses.  (2) I did not have health insurance for most of the time I was unemployed, but thankfully, I did not have any health issues that required me to see a doctor regularly.  (3) I did have some temporary short term jobs off and on during that time period which helped me out with my finances.   (4) He provided me with dear precious people in my life who prayed for me often and some who offered me spiritual advice concerning how I should perceive all of this – from the Lord’s eyes and not my own.  Those things were such incredible blessings for me and truly helped me to continue to move forward and not allow myself to withdraw from everything and everyone in my life and to become isolated.  There was no doubt that the Enemy in this world had been working overtime to attack me in so many ways, and even though I did give in sometimes with my attitude, the Lord was able to help re-direct me down His path and not my own.

Unfortunately, it was becoming a bit scary for me because my finances were starting to dwindle down, and I was not getting very many good job interviews or offers.  I was afraid I was going to have to file for bankruptcy, sell my home and become homeless.  Again, the Devil was trying to defeat me and diminish my faith in the Lord, and my dearest BFF told me that I needed to (1) view all of this one day at a time and to trust the Lord to hold my hand; (2) to keep my focus on Him and not on my circumstances; (3) to trust Him for His timing and opening the right door for me at the right time, and (4) to always believe that the Lord did care deeply about me and all that goes on in my life and that He always will.

Well, recently, an incredible miracle happened!  The Lord opened a door for me with a job offer.  I received an email from a Christian attorney friend who said he forwarded my resume to another attorney friend of his.  I looked up the attorney and his firm online, and wrote down the phone number, and as I was getting ready to dial that number on my phone, I immediately received a phone call from that office!  I couldn’t help but smile to see how the Lord was revealing this to me.  When I spoke with the lady on the phone, she said they wanted to know if I was interested in meeting with them for an interview the next day, and I said, “Sure I’d be glad to come to your office.”  This position was for a paralegal and also for someone who could do a lot of marketing and promoting their business.  The field of law was labor and employment – which I had over 14 years of experience working in that area and have always enjoyed it so much!  I’ve also enjoyed doing marketing, and I told the woman that I had some Powerpoint seminars which I had helped create and design for some of the attorneys I worked for in the past, and I offered to send them to her via email to review.  She was glad to hear that and asked me to send them to her. After I got off the phone, I was inspired to create a brochure for the firm and went to their website and copied and pasted some of their information onto the brochure along with some photos that I had on my computer dealing with this field of law.  I wanted to bring this with me to the interview the next day so they could see how much I truly enjoyed marketing and PR work.  I also prayed that the Lord would shine through me and reflect how Jesus would be if He were interviewing for a job.  I wanted to convey to them that my heart and passion was to be a help and a blessing to my boss, my co-workers, and to our clients.

The next morning at my interview I met with the attorney and the woman I had spoken with on the phone, and I gave them each a copy of the brochure I had made.  The attorney was totally surprised to see that and wondered where I found it, and when I told him I created it for him, he was so happy and very complimentary towards me about how professional it looked.  He asked about other things I had done in this field of law, and we had a great discussion about that.  At the end of the interview, the attorney told me that he felt that I was the best person ever for this job, and I was automatically offered the position, which had good pay and good benefits.  I was so shocked and amazed at how the Lord answered my prayer like this, and I totally give Him ALL the praise and glory for what He did for me!  

I was asked to start working on April 20th, which was exactly nine months since I was unemployed, and my BFF said to me, “Well, the Lord knows you’ve been struggling with all these “labor” issues and finding some full time work, and He has finally delivered you by having you give birth to a new job!” which was so funny, especially since it does take a specific amount of time for an infant to develop within a mother before she goes into labor and then gives birth.  In the same way, it often takes time for us to trust the Lord to lead us down the right path and open the right door at the right time.  It was also a bit amusing since this field of law is LABOR and employment.  It’s quite precious that the Lord provided me with a job that is in my area of interest and skills and also that it’s not so stressful and filled with high volume work like so many of the jobs I looked into this past year.  I am so thankful to have the opportunity to work at this firm and to be able to reach out and be a blessing to them, just like Jesus would be.

I wanted to share this because I know that we all go through difficult things in life, but that we need to constantly trust the Lord for His timing, for His will and for His love for us.  Secondly, once we get through these difficult matters we may experience, we can look back and thank Him for His helping us and then we need to be willing to share this with others around us who may be going through similar issues in their own life – to pray with them and to encourage them to keep their mind focused on the Lord and to know that He is their vision and that He will never forsake them.  People are so blessed and encouraged to move forward in life when they have others reach out to them like this.  I know personally because that’s what happened to me.  Thank you Lord Jesus!