A New Job

It's been a sweet forever since I blogged.  However, I have a pretty good excuse... sort of.

I have a new full time job.  I'm the Director of Preschool Ministries at Cross Church Fayetteville.  Now, our campus hasn't opened yet.  We're still in the building stages, but there is so much prep involved - it's crazy!  Plus, I'm still working Kids Day Out as well as Friday Night Out until the end of this next week.  It's been a wee bit stressful, but it's also been super exciting!

To back up a bit, I interviewed for the job in September.  September 21st, to be exact, was my first interview.  I remember because I was praying for God to give me some sort of confirmation on what I needed to do for sure.  I was torn in so many ways over this opportunity.  I had some time before I was to meet for the interview, so I grabbed my Bible and sat down to read.  Not having anything in particular that I needed to read, I just went to Proverbs as is my habit if I don't have a reading plan that I'm following - cause, you know, there's wisdom in that there book. :)  I usually go to the chapter that corresponds to the day of the month.  Which was my intention that day.  But all morning long, I kept thinking it was the 22nd.... which is what chapter I turned to.  I began to read and got to verse 6.  I read it and it was, like my sweet friend Marita described to me, like a neon light blazing off the page at me.  It reads, "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it." I just wept.  Literally.  It still brings tears to my eyes to think about it.  I was so humbled and so overwhelmed that the God who created the universe chose that moment to speak to me.  He cares enough about me, about the details of my life, to lead me to that verse... on the "wrong" day... that was exactly the scripture I needed to read. That was to be my job - to help in training a child in the way he should go...and to help build truths in the hearts of these precious tiny humans that would be with them forever.  I stayed on that verse and couldn't move past it for a long time.  Then Satan started talking to me again, as he has a habit of doing.  How in the world was I going to pull this off?  Wasn't "so and so" better for the job?  I would probably get in trouble a bunch for just not doing a good enough job (which I hate, nay LOATHE being in trouble).  How was I ever going to be successful in this?  Oh, but then.  But then.... I was able to get past verse 6 and read on through that chapter.  And God did it again.  He spoke loud and clear through verse 19 and said straight to my heart, "I have instructed you today - even you - so that your confidence my be in the Lord."  He instructed me that day - EVEN ME - that I shouldn't worry about what I could do on my own and that my confidence didn't need to be in my abilities, or lack thereof.  My confidence that I would do a good job in the position that God was leading me to should be in the Lord.  If He would choose to put me in that place, He surely would equip me to do the job and if I do a good job, it's only because of Christ and the gifts He has given me - certainly not of myself and of anything coming from me.  By the end of that day of my first interview, I realized that I'd read the "wrong" chapter and was even more overwhelmed that God didn't let me read chapter 21, as was according to the date.  He led me to the perfect thing I was to read.  And God led me to be hired in that position.

And then Satan went to work IMMEDIATELY.  I got the job.  I was on such a spiritual high.  A couple things happened that just completely made my week.  And then BAM!!  Satan was on the attack in a hurry!  Less than 24 hours after it became public info that I was the person for this job, I got slammed to my knees.  For three days, I was in hell.  I literally felt like I was doing battle with the devil.  I felt stripped of anything good in me.  I was miserable.  But God used that time to draw me so close to him.  I remember at one point just closing my eyes, putting my head in my hands, and imagining crawling up into the arms of God and letting His wings cover me with His peace.  Occasionally Rachel will do that with Mike - just crawl up in his arms and let him hold her.  What a sense of peace and belonging to be a small child, covered and protected in your daddy's arms.  That's what my God did for me during those days.  He let me be covered and protected in my Daddy's arms.  Satan was eventually defeated in that battle (to which I totally stuck my tongue out at him over it!) and things went forward from there.  But the whole experience reminded me that the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.  He is good.  All the time.  Regardless of our circumstances.

soooo much!!  My prayer daily is that God will use me.  However I need to be used.  That He will lead the right people to come alongside and help teach and lead these tiny humans.  I can't wait to see lives changed and people come to know Jesus!  I'm so excited!!

"But as for me, I will never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." Galatians 6:14