I vividly remember my first experience with real, intercessory prayer.
When I was a child, my little sister lost a toy in the backyard. It was only a cheap Happy Meal toy, a plastic figurine of Bambi with movable legs. But our family was far from wealthy (in material possessions at least) and she loved that toy.
She prayed that she would find it. Every night, after the books had been read and our teeth brushed, she would kneel by our worn couch and pray for that toy. Fall and winter came and went. Then spring, and the lawn grew long enough for mowing. One day, my father came into the house, smelling of freshly cut grass, his forehead wet with sweat.
He was holding the toy.
Needless to say, my sister was overjoyed and welcomed a somewhat-worse-for-the-wear Bambi back into the playroom with open arms. But I was jealous.
"Why don't my prayers always get answered?" I asked. My dad said that maybe my sister had a special gift, the gift of faith. God listened to her because she was a child with a pure heart.
Faith comes more easily to some than to others, and being a firstborn, I wanted it too. But firstborns are also clever and wily and driven to succeed - qualities not always compatible with childlike faith.
The next thing I remember really wanting was to win the Awana Grand Prix. My father had made identical cars for me and my friend, Liane. They were Formula 1 racers, carved from blocks of wood. They had plastic wheels and little Lego men as the drivers. As I watched the cars in the first heat being lined up at the top of the track, I remembered Bambi, and I started to pray.
But halfway through, I changed my prayer.
I knew that God blessed unselfish people, so if I prayed for someone else to win, he might take my selflessness into account and let me win instead.
"Dear God, please help Liane to win," I prayed.
She did.
And I finished almost dead last.
And the moral of the story is...
Be careful what you pray for. Be careful what you say.
Because even if you don't mean it, God is always listening.
Which brings me to today's post.
About two weeks ago, I flippantly remarked to Nathan that I wasn't worried about money any more. "We don't always know where it's coming from, but we always seem to have enough. From now on, I'm just going to trust God with our finances."
Yikes!!! (Too bad my mouth doesn't have an undo button.)
When we got home that night, we got a letter in the mailbox. Our tenants were leaving at the end of the month. It rattled us. Big time. But we looked at our budget and looked at our bills and decided that we could make it on our own. And we moved on.
About a week ago, I got called into the office at school. My hours were being cut, and I needed to decide whether or not this job still worked for me. It rattled me. Big time. But I was being laid off for the summer anyway, and that would give me two lean months to search for another part-time position and/or build a small-but-steady income doing art and writing. And I moved on.
Today, I got called to the office to take a phone call. When the speaker began, "This is the phone call that everybody dreads..." I knew it wasn't going to be good.
And it wasn't.
I was being bumped (someone with more seniority took my position because theirs had been cut). In less time than it takes to brew a cup of coffee on a Keurig, everything changed. Since I am at the bottom of the totem pole, there is no one left for me to bump.
Just like that, I became unemployed.
Tomorrow is my last day at NMES. I will smile and pack my things and drive home for the last time, not knowing what September holds.
But who does? Not a single one of us can see even one second into our future. We make guesses and predictions and hang up our hats on hooks that don't even exist yet.
We know that at any moment, it could all come crashing down. And when it does, will we have regrets? We wouldn't be human if we didn't have at least a few.
But do I regret leaving a permanent, full-time teaching job at Devon Park?
No. I have the highest respect for the dedicated staff who pour their souls into children for just enough money to pay the bills. But I was exhausted from working 60-80 hour weeks and needed time to myself to re-kindle my passion for working with children and youth. And if I had stayed at DPCS, I would never have met or worked with the amazing people who helped me and encouraged me through many dark days this spring, when I had too many puppies and not enough sleep.
Do I regret my education?
Yes. If I had known there were no teaching jobs before I started university, I would have steered my career in a different direction. I regret believing the myth that if I made excellent marks I was guaranteed a good job with a stable income, and I wish I had chosen my degree more wisely. The world is a hard teacher, and maybe if I had struggled more in school, I would have been better prepared to cope with life's curve balls.
Do I know what I am going to do now?
Yes and no. I'm going to continue to apply for jobs. I'm going to write and draw and paint. I'm going to take another look at the ol' budget. I'm going to wait. And I'm going to pray.
Don't cry for me. I had my little pity party in the car already on my way to take Sam to the vet.
And I'll probably have a few more over the next few days.
Maybe it will be okay.
And maybe it won't.
But life will move on either way.
Because even if we think we're doing all right, a major life-change could be less than a second away.
None of us can really make it on our own.
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