You think this means something?

I interviewed for a new position on Tuesday; "we've already got three folks set for second interviews next week", he said. I was hopeful that I would become number 4. They called yesterday and my interview is on Tuesday at 11am. Keep your fingers crossed, and pray specifically that I would find the place that God has for me. Seems to me that this place is it, but I've been wrong before.

SuperMario

So Monday morning I went to a meeting as followup to a big event that the non-profit had sponsored over the weekend. As soon as I walked into the room, I knew I'd been set up. Two of the folks in there I don't trust and the other is the one I trust the most in the whole organization. "Michael, we want to thank you for all the work you did for the event..." says the guy I don't trust. He runs a drug rehab center. The first time I ever saw him he was sneaking a smoke at the back entrance. Then, inside, he was introduced to me. He's a hypocrite, but then so am I. I said, "I didn't do much at all for the event..." Yes you did, they insisted, but we're not going to be able to pay you anymore.

BIG PUNCH IN THE STOMACH

So, I'm out of part time work now. What will I do? I call my friends even before I leave the office and continue calling until I get home.

About 30 minutes after I get home, a guy that I'd invested some time in maybe 5 years ago to try and help him out of a really hard situation calls me. "My receptionist just quit. Can you come work for me?" It's been since April and nobody has offered me anything. Only two interviews, and only one of those turned out to be real. He's paying half the rate I was making at the non-profit, but it's double the time....so the same amount of money, for all you math whizzes out there. Amazing. An hour later, after I'd already shown up at his office to help, I get a voice mail asking me to set up an interview for a job I'd sent my resume in on. This is just unheard of in my time of being unemployed.

So there's the Super Mario thing. You know how you play....you try and get coins and mushrooms and all kind of good stuff that helps you along the way. And, me, being the forty-something that I am, never know what it is that I'm picking up, and sometimes I pick up the bad things before I know it. But further down the road you shoot, or jump and suddenly you're RAMBO and you never knew you had picked up the power back a couple of levels.

Five years ago, I simply fell in love with this guy who called me to offer a job. He had at that time, done a lot to screw up his life, and I was there to help. I hung out with him and got to know him. He was rich. He had everything material. I never asked him for anything and he never offered me any of it...thank God. And here we are a few years later...turns out I'd talked to him in the last month and he is in the process of losing everything. So he's not rich anymore. And it's the NOT rich him that offers me a job; I was the first person to come into his mind when he found himself in need. And his head is hard enough that he looks me in the eye when I relate to him the path of my Monday morning and ask, deadpan, "Do you think there's anything to that?" Well, duh, boss man!

He knows I have an interview on Tuesday and I hope I get the job. I'm sure the pay will be better and he can find someone in this marketplace to do the job that I'm doing for him.

I went to The Well last night and my friend gets up to share about the job she's been offered at the place she was temping. Last I heard from her she was hoping to just hang on to part time work there, mostly because of a terribly tragic thing that happened to her three years ago in a traffic accident. She tells almost the same story that I'd had as my very own experience and then drops the great news on the group (and me) about the new job.

I've always suspected that life was a game that I was incapable of playing. In so many places and ways I'm just not good at it. But the places I'm not so good at are in relationships and I'm learning those are the places where you don't play games at all. The game is over there somewhere beside you, the part you put your mind asleep or on autopilot about; just the little day to day things.

What I'm learning is that when you're with people, just love them like they're your mama. And when you're dealing with life's minutia, stay on alert for the coins and mushrooms that God has hidden FOR you. If you wonder about it, ask Him if He sent it. He'll tell you. If He says "Don't touch", put your hands in your pockets and walk on.

One day, let's compare scores on Super Mario.

If you're looking for something to read, try these out:

Joshua 3...just read all of Joshua. And get in the river. Not the Jordan river anymore, it's the river of living water. Take a bath; get your hair wet. Try praising God and you'll find that, even though the current is really strong and the river is flowing fast, you can walk UPSTREAM towards the throne of Jesus, which is the source. Bring somebody with you for the trip.

Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, Mark 8, 9, 10 (look in the 30's in the Mark chapters and see where Jesus confirms that his death for us was part of his PLAN A FOR SALVATION.

Destiny

I wonder how it is that you lose all hope. There are times when it seems like I'm close, and I know I'm a drama queen and depend too much on others to pull me out, but to lose all hope...I shoulda coulda woulda, but I haven't.

At my weakest I get reminded that the Joy of the Lord is my strength (Nehemiah 8:10) and then I read Habakkuk (bless you, take care of yourself, you could be getting a virus) 3:17.

Some links to those: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Nehemiah+8:10,

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=habakkuk%203:17-18;&version=31;.

And then I look around and see people pursuing their passions, and I know that I amn't and then I wonder, what IS my passion. I know it's people, but how, where, whom?

Passion is connected to destiny, so I start thinking that if I don't even have a passion, what is my destiny? Gotta have one to have the other, and then I get into the whole chicken/egg thing.

Bottom line, I know I'm only here to be in relationship with God, and to point my finger at him (first, not third) and glorify Him. So then I start to wonder why in the world the order it all happens is important.

Anyway, it snowed today in Atlanta and my dog, Jasper, when presented with the opportunity to walk out into it all to take a leak and whatever else he needed to do, did an immediate U-turn as if to say "Hell to the NO!" a-la-Madea. After a meal, his mood changed and he tiptoed to the top of the hill to do his bidness. I love him so much.

Anyway, here's what my front yard looks like. 5 years here and this is the first time there's been that much snow.

btw, I'm still underemployed, uninsured, and poorer by the day.....YET (See Habakkuk).

If you have a job you'd like to offer me, you can do it here.