I am writing a blog post about our weekend and hopefully will have it up by tomorrow.
If you have read my blog very long then you know my husband has been without a job for a really long time. The Lord provided a contract job for about a year & while we were very thankful for that, it never completely covered all of our bills. We continued to pray for a better job that would enable Scott to provide the money we needed to cover all of our bills.
That prayer has finally been answered.
Scott has attained his license to be an Independant Catastrophic Claims Adjuster. Say that 3 times. :o) Basically this means that when a catastrophy happens (like Hurricane Irene) he is deployed out to handle property claims that are made. He got his license just in time for Irene to slam the East Coast. But, right before Irene hit land, he was hired by a company close by to work in-house support for those adjusters out in the field. As an independant adjuster he can deploy at anytime. It is his choice. Not a bad deal.
So what does this mean? It means that my husband will be gone a lot no matter if he stays here or goes on into the field! At first, I thought it to be no big deal. We really need the kind of money this job pays so I can handle him being gone here & there.
Ok, back to the conference.
The morning started off wonderful with the praise team. While in the middle of one of my favorite songs my phone starts buzzing. It was my husband saying that he has been called into work the next morning. Then another message came through. "I've been asked to go to Pennsylvania and be there by Wednesday morning."
My heart stopped. This is real.
One of the speakers at the conference was Patsy Clairmont. I have always enjoyed her wit & humor and ability to draw in Biblical truths. She was sharing about a recent trial their family had been through. One of the biggest lessons she had learned was that change is good. She just kept saying it over & over.
I don't like change, but we had been praying for change and now we really have change.
"Lord, I don't like this. I know we asked you to provide stable income, but why does it have to take him away?"
I tried to listen to the rest of Patsy's message but my pity party was getting the best of me. All of a sudden past fears that I thought I had buried were resurfacing.
"What if he never comes home? It is dangerous where the storm hit." The enemy was having a field day with my mind.
Then Patsy said it again, "Change is good, no matter what it may look like at the time."
The Lord reminded me of a verse I had read the week before. "And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes will see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying "this is the way, walk in it." when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left." (Isaiah 30:20-21)
Your Teacher will not hide himself anymore.
Ok, pity party over!
We have experienced adversity but this new job isn't adversity & I really have to stop looking at it that way. It is an answer to prayer, a gift from God! And I am complaining because it means big change for us? Will my heart ever learn to rejoice inspite of myself? Will I ever learn to keep my eyes on Him instead of myself?
He has given our family a new direction. He is clearly saying, "This is the way, walk in it."
Anytime God gives us direction it will bring change.
When I got the text messages telling me Scott would be called out we were singing the song that says, "He gives & takes away, but my heart will truly say, Blessed be the name of the Lord."
You know, sometimes what He gives we don't really want and what he takes away can be something we thought we would have to live with forever.
Isaiah said, "the Lord gives you the bread of adversity". Our many years of financial difficulty were given to us by God to draw us to Him. Now, He takes that away. I had settled in my mind that we would forever struggle with finding enough income to meet all of our needs & now it seems that God is taking that struggle away. We'll see.
Change is good.
Scott didn't go to Pennsylvania. He is staying home & working insane hours at their office, but getting paid well to work those insane hours. We are only at day 3 of him working there. The real change hasn't sunk in yet. But it will & my prayer is that I can say, "Blessed be the name of the Lord." instead of "woe is me".
