Thursday, January 24, 2013

Its a Celebration

We have been offered and accepted a job!! Not just any job, but the absolute best job we could have hoped the Lord would bless us with. And yes we have been BLESSED. I am so grateful that we have a loving Father in Heaven who knows us and our needs. He wants to bless us and will bless us if we let Him and in the right timing. 

First of all we have been unemployed since September. Over and over again we have been reminded over the past few months that Heavenly Father is mindful of us and our needs. As we prayed the answer I felt more than once was "why are you worried, haven't I taken care of you". Yes He was taking care of us. He showed that love over and over again. And even though we still did not have a job I knew that He loved us and was blessing us daily. Not all answers to prayers are "no" "yes" or "not now" sometimes the answer is "calm yourself, see how you have been blessed". As I reflected on the answer I was given there are two scriptures that came to mind. One my mother pointed out to me "consider the lilies" Luke 12:27. I have never been able to comprehend this scripture. But in the light of our trials I have a new found understanding and love for this scripture. The lilies are lovely and blessed by the LORD, they don't worry about if the sun will ever rise again or will they get what they need. Instead they just grow and flourish and trust that God will provide. They hold up their part by looking beautiful to honor God, and God provides for them. The other scripture is the second found in the promise Moroni gives everyone who wants to know if the Book of Mormon is from God or some other source. After exhorting us to read the Book of Mormon, he then exhorts us to "remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things..." then he exhorts us to pray about the Book of Mormon and ask God about if it is truth or not. I promise I know that if you ask God with pure intents God will answer your prayers. But the reason I mention this here is Moroni points out something I feel is over looked or not always looked at in personal ways. God has been merciful unto all mankind. He sent his Son to be our Savoir. We should be satisfied that was more than we all deserve. That is a huge blessing. But on top of the mercy God has shown the entire human race with that sacrifice. He still listens to all our prayers,  He answers our prayers, and He blesses all so much. I know that if all of us stopped wanting what we don't have and looked at our lives through God's eyes, we'd see that we are so blessed, more than we can ever understand. Take a moment today and reflect. Then thank God for how merciful He has been in your life. It is humbling to think about.
Next the LORD's timing is a beautiful thing. That Tuesday we received the offer was the day my husband tested with the local police department. He had done really well on the written test, and had felt really confident about the PT test. Only to fall a little short by being disqualified.  We were devastated. We had been really counting on this. Yes this wasn't the end, we could test again. We were looking at other police departments. But this police department would mean not moving and being employed by the end of March. Which was the earliest any of the current jobs we were looking were hiring to start. We were all feeling really low when my husband, out of the blue, received a call offering him the job he applied for back in August and we were told was filled and he wasn't selected for in October. When my husband relayed this to me, I cried. I am not a crying female, but the past months have been an emotional roller coaster and all the pent up emotion was released in tears of joy, gratitude  and unbelief. We finally had a job, we made it through the drought. We have later come to learn that the timing was even more of a serendipitous blessing and has humbled us further. Since as of the same day we received our final offer an announcement was made that there is a hiring freeze in the Army for all civilian hiring effective imminently. We stepped onto the canyon wall as the bridge crumbled under our feet behind us. There is no other way to put it, then to say, I am in awe at the blessing we have been given. The Lord knows us and will bless us in His timing. 
All my life I have struggled with His plan for me and my plan for me. So rarely have I felt those plans converge. But I have always seen the wisdom in His plan if only in hind sight. This is what I wanted for us. For my husband to get this job, for us to stay put in our home, and for us to not move and stay in our ward with our callings. However, I had accepted that if that wasn't Heavenly Father's plan for our family, then no matter how much I didn't want something else, I was ready to accept it and move on. I am so grateful that sometimes what we plan we want is also the same plan He had in mind for us.
On a new less serious note,
That night after receiving our offer we went out to dinner with my in-laws. It was good to go out with out our children. Then my husband and I went to see LINCOLN, we enjoyed it. But as my husband put it to someone else- if you don't enjoy history or politics and movies about those two things make you want to dig your eyes out, you best not be seeing this movie. 

2 comments:

Whitni Watkins said...

Thank you for sharing your story. You expressed in a way I couldn't the blessings we just received for a job offer for a job I applied to in July. God loves is and God provides once we let him and stop trying to turn down a different road.

Joan Sowards said...

Cory's job offer was an answer to all our prayers.