Jesus & Tea

Today is Monday March 9th 2020 and is the beginning of the second week of my being in between jobs. I officially resigned one week ago from my role as Sourcing Specialist at Provenir Healthcare and was fortunate enough to land on the cushion of two months worth of living. I have returned gracefully to the familiar season of uncertainty that has characterized most of my life as with so many others.

I cannot shake the feeling that God has something very similar to my previous job in store. I feel like another simple job awaits me, and I will land in it right in his perfect timing. The only thing is, I am haunted by the fear of past seasons when I went hungry for several days because I was out of work and budgeted very poorly. I feel somehow like my life is hanging on by a thread, but in my inner being I know that I am in the center of his will. Everything is flowing in a perfect stream and I have not moved and inch outside the flow.

I spend most hours of these unemployed days glued to this bed, facing this window, and thanking God for such beauty, although I do not know how long it will last, given my fears of having to live with someone from church….which would be terrible for my mental health and theirs.

You’re probably wondering how the job search is going. I have applied for almost every job listing I am qualified for within reasonable commute. I have not an ounce of patience for waiting on companies to return my call because I want a secure source of income, and immediately.

I am compartmentalizing every sense of dread of homelessness (on the far extreme), or having to ask for any assistance which would honestly sear my ego. Sigh. I ought simply to humble myself before God and remember that he has always been gracious, and has never taken me to extremes, except in times of transition which have typically been followed by reasonable circumstances.

Laying down my assumptions about what life ought to look like:

I am remembering how he sent the disciples out and they were coached about having to lay down their rights to comfort, shelter, and safety. It only seems in alignment with God’s character to allow a Christian to pass through such transforming circumstances, in order to add to to his own maturity. God is not out to get me simply put. I may struggle, but he will provide shelter and in due time, I will be employed, because to make use of our hands has always been a consistent requirement that God has asked of his children throughout the bible. It is only sensible.

Quiet reflections & Grieving Losses

This time has also been a period for healing and grieving. I grieve the sense of normalcy I felt here and there when I was an elementary aged kid and my parents were still married. My mother was a wife and mother most of the time and my father did construction (sheet metal to be specific). They were young and didn’t have much in common, but were very family oriented people, and I felt more whole when we were all a unit. I miss my mother’s cooking, the R&B blasting from our stereo set, riding my bike outside with Charles and watching my Dad prepare him for football games. That all felt like living..😭😭😭

I am mourning my father primarily because he is a broken man with no direction and his own father just passed away. I remember when he used to be a man. He was hard and abusive toward my mother but as a Dad he was fun from time to time and worked VERY hard. He was a handy man, equipped with every old fashioned skill any strong black man should have had, from athletics to carpentry.

He was good enough I’d say, but life has brought him to his knees and he doesn’t have his wife (my mother to whom he was never faithful) and somehow without her he has no backbone. Their oneness was my deepest desire, but their union never could bring God any glory.

I am healing….leaning on the Lord and appreciating that today is a rainy day, and my peaceful cat is such sweet company. Yesterday was a day of mending and releasing some of the anguish that gnaws at my soul. I journaled first the first time in a while, went through some old pictures as and called my mother, who is without a doubt consumed in grief and bitter with God about all that He has taken from her.

I had a long conversation with my mother over the phone after I sent her this picture of she, my brother Charles and I.

These were the sweetest most godlier aspects of my childhood. My mother nurtured us, and played all kinds of educational games with us all the time. We were sheltered and never heard any foul language come out of her mouth. She engrained a deep reverence for God in our lives and everything was done according to a schedule. She was my hero and my greatest source of comfort. The most beautiful, fun loving, teaching, strong single mother (in those days), has now been reduced to a woman who has lost half of her identity to the lies that envious and lowly people have infused into her mind. In those days she inadvertently laid the first foundation on my heart of what it meant to be a stable god-fearing strong black woman. Those times were so blessed.

It is a mystery why God calls things into being and allows them to be erased. I cannot tell you why. From my family dismantling into nothing, to the chaos and bullying I endured from lower-level staff at my previous job (which began as one of the richest blessings of my life)…I cannot explain. It may be that I left that job a day too soon, but I was about to explode on everyone and I feared being fired were that to happen, so instead I resigned. Not to mention the overdosing in my prescribed medications to numb the pain and sleep deprivation. I believe that was evident, in the concerns I had expressed to the senior team, that I felt there was no other option and made this difficult decision very carefully after having considered all possible outcomes. I cannot say why things are as they are, but God is merciful and I am healing and am overwhelmed with gratitude for this season to catch my breath and revisit my roots. His love never fails.

Also, this is so random, but I found this picture on VSCO, which is an app for people who love photography. It speaks hope to me so I really wanted to keep it ❤️.