Merry Christmas!

End of the road (part II)

"To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under Heaven."
Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NKJV)

Okay. Where were we?
I was at my brother’s house setting up an appointment for a Friday interview with Strang Communications. It’s in Lake Mary. For those of you outside of the Orlando general area, it’s far.
How far? Like Driving to Jersey from Long Island far. Like Oakland to San Jose far.
Perhaps a slight exaggeration, I don’t know. I’ll have to get back to you on that one. Suffice it to say Wifey was concerned. The distance, the tolls, the other financial considerations, etcetera, etcetera.
She said as soon as I hung up that I was going to get hired and that the job was mine.
Not that she was happy about it mind you. She was not happy about a lot of things but mostly that God seemed to need us to take this whole sacrificing thing a little further than we initially wanted to.
I was looking forward to getting something close to home making the same money or better than I was before and letting life get back to some semblance of normality.
Nope. Someone has another plan.
Figures.
So I get up and go Friday morning, making pretty good time all things considered (just under 40 minutes!). My commute wouldn’t even make top ten most aggravating drives nationally.
Forty measly minutes? Bah!
But when you’re down to one working car, it puts a strain on you mentally.
The interview goes amazingly well, all the time I am thinking that God definitely has plans for me working there and, wouldn’t you just know it, the folks there are thinking the same thing. In fact, and I am absolutely positive that you have most likely NEVER heard this in a job interview:
“We were praying about you yesterday.”
My brother in law, to whom I related the details of the interview and is not a practicing Christian, though he may make an appearance or two at mass on the days when you are required to (Christmas, Easter, etcetera), was impressed.
Apparently it was a new concept for him too.
Praying for little ol’moi?
Okay, I know that this is crossing over into Billy Graham territory, but come on! When was the last time someone told you they were praying for you the very first time they met you?
Huh? Huh!?! I didn’t think so.
So you can see why I think this is more than just some odd set of circumstances. There is a higher power at work here.
They told me they had one more interview for the day but that they liked my resume and attitude and they have a good feeling about me. They think that maybe God wants me there.
I love to hear that sort of stuff, don’t you?
Not in a narcissistic way, I mean in a man-I-really-needed-to-hear-that-right-now kind of way.
It’s been a long month what with the whole getting fired and no money for food, bills or Christmas and all that, right?
So the waiting game begins and the weekend starts along with it. We end up at my brother-in-laws place on Saturday morning for a Christmas parade after which we retire to his home with the children, play a little BF 2142 and grill a few burgers. It was a nice afternoon. Pleasant, sunny and none of the kids lost an eye (unless you call slamming into a PAC Walker at 240 knots while defending the EU Titan at the Sidan Power Plant a bad thing).
Definitely a win-win for all involved.
Sunday morning rolls around and we mosey on over to church to meet my brother and his Wifey. Good times. The pastor was talking about Christmas prophecies and the like, quoting some of the more infamous predictions of the twenties century. He gets to one that involves Debbie Fields of Mrs. Fields Cookies fame. It was something about an executive telling her that no one is going to want soft baked chocolate chip cookies.
And that’s when he starts tossing his cookies into the congregation. Unfortunately I was sitting too far back to benefit from the soft baked deluge.
They looked good from where I was sitting though.
My brother thought it was great. He’s been struggling a lot lately and I was glad to see him laughing, even if it was in church and possibly inappropriate.
Then again, the Pastor was tossing cookies, so who am I to judge right?
He who is without sin, cast the first Toll House.
We had breakfast after the service and the girls (the Wifeys) went home with the kids while my brother and I decided to visit my Dad’s church.
Before you go and say something, I am not trying to accrue Holier-Than-Thou points or anything, I was just going to support my brother. Besides, I wanted to see my father too.
Let’s just say that the second sermon had a whole lot more than flying chocolate chip cookies going on. The preacher for the day was a guest speaker. Joe Deveraux I think his name was. He was good, got the congregation all motivated and hollering.
“Preach it!”
“Uh huh, you tell ‘em Pastor!”
You could feel something brewing in the air. He talked about the spirit of God being able to break chains, set you free and he had us all believing.
I was even joining the rest of the folks with an amen here and there. I normally like to sit tight during the a church service. I'm not likely to run up and down the aisles.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
My brother was like a pot of soup left on the high heat too long, ready to boil over and right when the holy ghost showed up towards the end…
(and for the record, yes, the holy ghost showed up)
... he bolted upright out of his chair, bawling uncontrollably, calling out to Jesus.
Screaming really.
His hands were raised to high heaven at it was as though someone took a massive weight off of him. I was nervous for a second. I'd never seen him like this and I placed my hand on the small of his back to steady him. He was rocking on his heels, weeping uncontrollably. I felt his strength leave him and caught him as he collapsed.
I held him as he sobbed, tears flowing for the both of us as I asked God to give him peace.
I know what he has been through recently and I can completely understand the need for divine intervention.
Have you ever met the Holy Ghost? The Holy Spirit?
Words alone can’t really describe what its like to be in the presence of something so seemingly abstract and yet so tangibly real.
You can’t see it. You can't hear it.
Oh but you can feel it, you can be moved by it.
You feel it in the way you try to remain detached and logical and so very contemporary as your brother stands up in the middle of a crowded church and cries out for God to save him and you feel something pouring off of his being like a cool breeze.
Like that fog in the Ten Commandments.
It wraps around you and you feel something you’ve never felt before and then next thing you know you are crying. Joy, pain, fear, hope, they come spilling out of you as you absorb the fact that the other hundred or so people in the room are being moved in the same way.
Mass hysteria?
Sure, I could see where you might get that idea, but that just tells me that you have never been there, that you have never wanted to believe in something bigger than yourself. How can you want it and not get it? It seemed so effortless to experience it.
All you had to do was want it.
After the service, my brother and I were standing near the pulpit talking to my Dad when the church’s pastor walks up and embraces my brother. He starts to pray for him and before you can say Benny Hinn, he’s laid his hands on him and PLOP!
He falls over in tears and prayer, speaking in tongues.
Yeah. Just like on TV.
And I am like, wow. I’m not sure what just happened but I am wondering what it feels like to get knocked over like that by something you can’t see. Too bad that can't happen to me.
The pastor walks up to me and extends his hand and I take it, thinking he just wants to say hi.
Wrong.
He puts his other hand on my chest and says in a soft voice, “Your dry season is over. Bring forth creativity.”
And then I feel it. The room fading away, an explosion of something inside me breaking loose and as I fall over I realize that nothing really knocks you over. There is no invisible hand that smacks you square on the jaw, buckling your knees like a prize fighter.
It’s a soft kiss, a whisper of love, it’s a still, small voice asking if you have faith.
Asking if you believe.
Asking you to surrender.
“Let me love you”
And I did.
I was on my back, sobbing with something akin to relief. Relief that it was real, that the folks on the TV were not faking, they were simply believers. They were clinging to the presence of the Creator of the Universe.
How often do you get to do that?
I wanted to stay there forever. I wanted to stay there and let God love me.
I sat up after a moment, wiping the tears from my eyes and I knew that what the pastor told me before I was laid out was the truth.
Have you ever just known something, known it down to the very core of your being?
The dry season is over.
The rest of the day was basically afterglow. Trying to remember the feeling of the moment, remember the sounds of the room as people worshiped and were blessed by something supernatural.
In the early afternoon the following day, Monday, I received a call.
I got the job.
They prayed some more and felt like God wanted me there.
I’m not some superhero. There is really nothing all that special about me. I am an average Joe for the most part. A nice guy to be sure but I am also a broken, willfully disobedient and often times sinful man too.
And he wants me there.
Who am I to say no?
I am really beginning to like this journey. I can’t wait to see what’s next. I’m suddenly part of some grand master scheme and even though my part may be small, he makes me feel like it’s the most important part of all.
Here comes the rain, son, the dry season is over.

The End of the road (part I)

"Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others"
- Philippians 2:4 (NIV)

Okay, so I had a really interesting week. I met with some incredible people on during the week (and especially Friday), had a barbecue Saturday and got smacked upside the head with the Holy Ghost on Sunday.
That’s a lot to take in one sitting huh?
Yeah. Sure is. Let me start at the beginning…
We, the Wifey and I, were out in force last week, checking out the government job services places and stuff. They have this really impressive operation going at One Stop Career Center. Think Wal-Mart for the unemployed.
Well, maybe Super Wal-Mart.
Friendly, courteous staff, eager to help you out and get your resume all filed away nicely and stuff. They really had the processing down to a science. Ushered from one spot to another, you were registered and searching the job database pretty quickly. They have all sorts of resources, computers, copy machines, seminars, et cetera. I got a phone call during the seminar but since I was smart enough to put the blasted thing on vibe I was able to avoid the tsk-tsk-dirty-look-fest that was sure to have followed. It was a nice seminar, even had a well produced orientation video and everything.
You have to love orientations. Especially how they leave you feeling anything but.
We left when it was over. I knew I sort of struck out at the Quicky Job place. There was nothing really in my field but at least I felt like I was doing something, making an effort and they were so helpful it was hard to feel bad.
You know what I mean? I was starting to resent the fact that I was stuck at home, jobless, waiting for my eBay auctions to sell for billions. That’s right, I said BILLIONS (insert pinky into edge of smirk, laugh maniacally).
Nothing doing on that end, although I have to admit, its starting to pick up a little. It’s kind of like fishing, except there are no worms.
And no beer. I think they would have frowned upon adult beverages at the Job center.
And the Dramamine. Who gets sea sick at a Job center?
So we leave the Quickie-Job place and grabbed a burger. Okay, we splurged.
We each had our own individual burger!
Scandalous!
I know, I know, I feel so guilty too. Here we are broke like the Liberty Bell, noshing on Sonic Burgers.
They were so good though. You should try it when you get a chance. Assuming, of course, that you eat meat. I remembered that call I received during the orientation seminar and felt it was time to return it.
It was from one Elias Solomon.
Who? That's exactly what I was thinking. I had no idea who he was.
Metro Orlando Urban League.
Oh, that sounded more familiar.
Let me explain. No, there is too much, let me sum up:
Spoke to Mom last week and she was concerned that we didn’t have the mortgage money (we still don’t) and said that the Metro Orlando Urban League might be able to help.
With me so far? Good.
So, wham, bam, alakazam I am set up to come in the following morning for, yep, you guessed it, more orientation. MOUL, as they like to refer to themselves, is in the same line of work as the Quickie Job Mart folks over at One Stop; basically helping those that need to find work, though the lovely people at MOUL also help those with housing needs.
Salt of the earth, man, real salt of the earth, everything you hoped they would be. There is something to be said for Faith Based Initiatives. In both places I got the sense that they were really trying to help. I grew up poor. Welfare offices and public assistance offices are places with which I am all too familiar. They can be cold and callous there. I’m sure that years of doling out food stamps to the numbed faces of societies forgotten masses can wear on a person.
But at One Stop and MOUL there was still that sense of hope.
We sat through the orientation session led by one Elias Solomon, a jovial, effervescent individual if I ever met one. He entertained and enlightened the ten or so people in his little conference room, doling out helpful advice on being of sound mind and body as you searched for employment.
I sat there during the morning, wondering what I was really doing there . It was all rudimentary stuff, Job Search 101. I know how to fill out an application and how to make up a resume for the most part. But I got the sense that the orientation was only a preamble to my being there.
I got this weird sense of anticipation. It's really hard to explain.
I asked God, “What gives? Why am I here?”
I had this thought just pop into my head. You know, just like a funny thought does when you are desperately trying not to laugh (it always happened whenever my Dad was yelling at me).
“You’re here to meet someone.”
Oh? And here I thought I was looking for work.
“To meet someone” The thought would not leave me. We sat around waiting for our (yeah, Wifey was with me yet again) turn to speak to the staff about assistance and the thought popped in, burping up through my consciousness like spicy food the day after.
It was finally our turn and it was no surprise that there weren't a lot of leads for my line of work. Customer Service? Check. Entry level? Tons, veritable ream upon reams of job openings.
Web Developers? Nada.
“Oh wait”, she said as she stood and walked out of the room rather abruptly.
She returned with someone that looked around my age, wearing a confident, friendly smile. Not used car salesman smile, like a person that you know you could be friends with for life.
Okay. So I was there to meet this one individual. He sat in the small office with us and read over a copy of my resume that the social worker handed him.
“I have a job for you.”
Not a maybe, not a question, no doubt in the sentence at all. It was a definitive statement.
I know a few people that talk like that. Nearly all of them carry Bibles.
I knew that God had led me there for the sole purpose of meeting this guy, Anthony Mitchell, Full Sail graduate and gospel singer.
A man of God, as the saying goes.
You just feel it in your bones, you know it like you know that ice cream gives you brain freeze if you eat it to fast and that you are going to step in that hot sticky gum bubbling in the summer heat on the sidewalk despite your best attempts to avoid it.
I mean that in the good way.
Sometimes things happen in life and they seem terrible or confusing at the time but there is a purpose to it, a reason for the season. You can realize that things align according to a purpose and try to get with the program or you can avoid it, get mad and get lost in transition from bad luck to divine intervention.
I wanted the divine intervention personally.
Okay. Long story short, his wife needs a website. She is planning on launching a faith based diversity magazine online and he thinks I have what they need.
All this from my resume? Wow. Even I am impressed. I had no idea that my writing skills had advanced to Jedi-like proportions. I glanced down at my resume to see what he does because lets face it, at this point my self confidence has fled the scene to avoid prosecution.
God. I knew it. There goes that snap, crackle, pop, in the head again (apparently He’s serving Rice Crispies in the brain).
“He sees what I see.” There is that though popping in again.
Anthony casually mentions that his wife knows someone looking for a web person and he takes my resume to make some copies. After a few minutes of conversation, we part company and she offers to contact us if she hears anything. Anthony asks me to call him later that evening.
As we are driving away I tell the wife that I think the whole reason for us going there was to meet that one guy. She agrees.
That makes it official.
The next day we drop off the application for free lunches at the district school offices and decide to visit my brother and his wifey. Apparently God was serving the one liners to the wife too since it was her suggestion. She said she felt like we should go.
We are there for a bit talking over things, I'm inviting my brother to come to Church on sunday seeing as how he could use a bit of positivity in his life when I get a call from a company called Strang (like strange without the e) Publications.
Apparently they print all sort of books and magazines - all sorts of Christian magazines and books.
Interesting, I think.
“We have a job we would like you to come interview for.”
Very interesting, I think.
Have I mentioned that the last three jobs I have had I never had to apply for?
Yeah. That’s right. You know what I am going to say even before I say it.
Okay, one time I can maybe say that it was luck; but three consecutive times?
I’m good, but not that good.
It was, as my could-be-blonde-valley-girl cousin Lisa would say, totally God.
And she says it like “ OH MY GAWD TOTALLY GOD!”
Strange but true.
God provided the jobs for me. I wasn't even going to church last year at this time. I was avoiding God like broke people avoid collection agencies. But his fingerprints were there, all over the things in my life.
This is getting a little long in the tooth for one blog so I will continue this tomorrow. Don’t worry, I will get to the Good Friday, the Saturday BBQing and the smacked upside the head by the Holy Ghost and I will even explain why Pastor David was throwing soft baked chocolate chip cookies at the congregation on Sunday.
No, seriously, he was throwing cookies during the sermon.
Hasta manana…

A whole lotta nothing...

Consider it all joy... when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
-James 1:2-4 (NASB)

I have been pretty busy the last week, sending out resumes, emails, making calls and the like. You know, the standard operating procedure for the unemployed. I won’t say that the week has been without its disappointments but they are more of the “God, you’re not answering my prayer fast enough” variety as opposed to actual disappointments.
Patience can be such a pain when its something that you need as opposed to something you expect from someone else.
It wasn’t all quiet. I did get a response from one person (or governmental entity to be more precise). I was approved for unemployment compensation so I got that going for me. Of course, they have yet to send me anything but I’m hopeful it will get here eventually.
Soon.
Like right now.
No, seriously, like now God!
The wife and I have been discussing what our options are at this point. We have discussed selling the house and moving somewhere less expensive. Like, say Arkansas.
Can’t you just smell the fresh air?
No? Me either.
Still, it’s on the table. I won’t rule anything out at this point. Running away and joining the circus is one particularly attractive option. So is falling on a hand grenade.
Neither one is particularly feasible. We have had some family members ask why I’m not working at Home Depot or Burger King or something yet.
Beggars can’t be choosers, you know.
I’m not insulted that they have suggested those jobs. I worked for Burger King once before and I can tell you with absolute certainty that I can’t go back.
Not because I feel a job like that is beneath me.
I gained 30 lbs in six months when I worked there.
I just lost those 30 lbs over the last year or so. I’m not in a hurry to get them back anytime soon.
The fact of the matter is that if I take a job that pays less than a certain amount, I’d lose my house anyway. There is a floor that I need to stay above in order to stay where I am.
What, me worried?
Yeah, a little. I’m human right?
Over the last week I have struggled to stay positive in the complete absence of action.
What does that mean?
Well, I like to see things getting done. Especially when they are things I need. I need a job so I like to see me sending out the dusted off resume and getting call back faster than I can mail them out.
It irks me when the phone doesn’t ring.
Hello? Didn’t I pray last night God? What are you doing anyway?
See, me and the Almighty are not working in the same time frame. I have my schedule and he has his.
Guess who wins out?
Yeah, and still no calls.
I think that this is one of those great lessons in patience my Dad was always telling me about. “You need to pray that God give you some patience, boy.”
Great advice.
Except that in order to have more patience you need to basically wait longer right?
I wish I realized that before I started to pray for patience. I have since learned my lesson and started to pray for two things and two things only.
Trust and acceptance.
Now acceptance is the thing I need to allow God time to work. (Notice how that sounds a lot like asking for patience without asking for patience?) Okay. I got the whole acceptance thing down pat. What else am I going to do? Complain? Whine?
Been there, done that, got the tee shirt.
Now trust is something I need too.
I need more trust like Pac-Mac needs the power pellets. I got Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde on my tail and I need to chase them back to where they came from. I’d settle for a Cherry or a Banana or one of those cool holes in the map that leads to the other side.
Wakka, wakka, wakka…