Happy Birthday! You're fired...

Have you ever had a feeling that something bad was going to happen? You know, that down in the pit of your stomach feeling that something was not quite right, that some invisible force was hanging over your head waiting to crush you.
Paranoid? Maybe, but I had that very feeling over the last week or so.
Something was up, something was not quite right.
Maybe it was because I was quickly approaching my 35th birthday. The big three five. Mid-thirties, funny, I am officially a statistical category.
Who knew?
So I have had this feeling right? Learn to listen to that inner voice. The world is more than what we see and hear, humans feel things and sometimes we forget to listen to that inner voice.
I heard it but instead of doing something about it, I ignored it.
(Oh yeah, if your boss tells you about an unplanned meeting for four o’clock on a Friday afternoon that you have to attend start packing your personals. Especially if you only find out about it the day before and he won’t look you in the eye anymore.)
And so, here I am on my birthday gainfully unemployed staring the approaching holiday season and having to listen to my kids talk about what they would like to get. All I can think of is how I am going to pay the mortgage and the car payment and how long will it take me to find a new job and what if I have to take a big pay cut? How will I make ends meet?
Scared doesn’t even begin to describe the thing that is eating away at my stomach at the moment.
Part of me thinks I shouldn’t be. I can and will find another job, there are opportunities out there. But I feel scarred and wounded suddenly. There is nothing like a little financial insecurity to throw you for a loop.
To tell you the truth, I felt sick to my stomach. I tried to get some sleep but, like anyone that has been in my situation, sleep was hard to come by.
So what now?
I don’t know.
I prayed. That sounds weird to some I guess but when you are in tough spots you go with what you know. I grew up in church and as an adult I have tried on and off to stay faithful, as it were, but I have always found ways to step away and ignore God.
Unless something was wrong mind you.
No, if something is wrong he is the first one I come running to.
“God! Please help me! Please save me. What do I do?”
And then as soon as things are fine again (and make no mistake, they always seem to right themselves…) I go back to ignoring God and church. Who wants to get up early on Sunday morning?
So you can imagine that I felt a little more than guilty when I prayed on the way home from my former place of employment for help. “God?” I said. “Uh, I know I always do this and for the life of me I don’t really know why, but I am in trouble again and I, uh, need your help.”
I felt like puking but I managed to keep my lunch down.
“I wish I wasn’t this way God, but I am. I run from you at every opportunity and then when I find my self in trouble, I come running back to you for help.”
Traffic was pretty heavy but I was too distracted in my conversation with the Creator of the Universe to waste time flipping off the guy in the Beemer that just cut me off.
“I don’t want to ask for your help for me, that’s not what I am doing.” I felt on the verge of tears, if you can excuse my use of that tired old cliché. “I want your help for my kids and for my wife. They used to be able to count on me to support them and now I can’t be counted on.”
I can’t really put into words how much it hurt to admit that.
I am not capable of taking care of my family or providing for them at the moment.
And that’s what I told God. I get the feeling that he was waiting for me to admit that; to admit that I am not capable of handling my life on my own without him, without his guidance.
Is this starting to sound preachy? I hope not. My heart is pounding as I write this; I have this icy lead ball in my stomach that doubles in size when I think about my mortgage payment and the car payment that are due.
I’m not a holy roller; I went to church last Sunday for the first time in a year. I don’t pray, at least not prior to getting “let go” (no one actually says your fired anymore apparently). But this is where I am.
Unemployed and scared and no aces up my sleeve, thank you very much.
I am going to do something that I probably should have done a long time ago but was too much of a coward to do it.
I am going to trust God.
I am going to have faith that he will provide for me in the coming weeks. I will try my best to not be afraid of the great abyss that lies before me. I won’t fear the future because God always finds a way to meet my needs.
See, that’s the rub. This isn’t the first tight spot I have been in. Did I mention that already? We, the wifey and I, have been through foreclosure, bankruptcy and all sorts of problems. Most of you reading this now have experienced something along those lines too. You know what it is to feel the icy ball of lead and the fear of the unknown.
Is this going to be my therapy? Maybe it will be, I don’t know. I only know that I feel compelled to share the journey.
Hopefully someone out there, walking the same path as me, will see this blog a few months from know and be able to follow my journey and see how God delivers, how God provides.
He will you know.
I have no doubt of that.
I used to joke about Jesus and God with my buddies at work all the time and inside I secretly felt ashamed of that because I knew that it was wrong. I know what he can do for you. I know what it is to be saved.
I strayed from that path when the going was good, when things were easy and now I have this mess and I am asking myself, “What would Jesus do?”
Funny huh?
Well I think Jesus would ask his father for guidance and that’s what I will do for now.