Last night was not an easy night. I think I maxed out at two hours of sleep.
Post review, of course. Wrestling with the outcomes - about what I expected, but still a disappointment.
But between my fits of cold anger and rage and muttering under my breath and tossing and turning - so much so that I eventually moved out to the couch so others could sleep - I came upon a fact I had not really anticipated finding: maybe this is really what I meant to do.
Which made me all the angrier.
It simply cannot be, I argued to God. This cannot be it. I have so many other things I like to do, that I am interested in, that I am sure would be a great deal more useful - and useful to You - than what I do now. Good heavens, I would much rather be a writer, as I would have much rather have been a pastor or even a farmer or sheepherder or maybe even a teacher of history. I really much enjoy those things better than what I do now. This cannot be the thing that serves You best.
But I am here, 16 years into an industry I never anticipated or trained for, 13 years into a career field, and 12 years into holding the same title with no progress. Surely this is not it.
And then (I suspect somewhere around 0230 or so, between the writhing and the muttering) the answer popped into my head "Did I ever ask you to do any of that?"
Well, no, but...
"Did I ever ask you to do any of that? I mean, it is great that you enjoy so much of my Creation and I am appreciative, but I do not recall ever asking you to make a career of writing or pastoring or herding sheep or teaching history or any of the thirty things I know you are interested in. That does not mean I might never ask you to do them as a career somewhere, it is just that I have not asked you to do them now."
But, I mean, this...You know I this is not my dream. You know that I have little interest in this, that my ability to move forward is in practice quite limited, and that the idea of doing this for another 20 years depresses me beyond end, right?
"I know all that. But you will have to trust Me that this is where You serve best right now - and by now it means until I need you somewhere else, which could mean the r est of your life. I do not mean this to depress you but you are soldier in My army, not the other way around."
So everything else then?
"That certainly does not mean that you should do those things or even not do new things that interest you. What you must not do is confuse these things - call them hobbies or interests if you like - with the fact that I have put you in a certain place and I expect you to excel in that place as My witness until such time as I let you know that it is time to move on. It is like Iaijustu."
Iai, Lord?
"You like Iaijutsu. You have done it for almost six years and practice almost every day. You like it so much that last year you got an in-dojo certification. And I am glad you like it. But you would never confuse your love and practice of Iai with the idea that you should suddenly become a samurai, would you?"
No...
"The same logic applies. I want you to be well rounded - but I do not want you to confuse trifles with the main things. When you are done with what I need you to do there, I will let you know."
I certainly did not sleep any better after the conversation. I writhed back and forth some more, swearing for different reasons now - "I do not want to give up X as a dream. I need to believe that there is something beyond what I do now. I need to believe in - or at least hope for - something I like" - but like many other things I have found that once God has said what He needs to say, He does not really like to continue in the argument.
Am I fully adjusted to this thought? I do not believe so. It is hard to simply look at all of this and accept "This is what I need to do now - and not grumbling or angrily or with clenched teeth but willingly, even cheerfully when one's heart hardly seems to be in it.
But then again, I do not know this was ever really my argument to make.
Well perhaps you could ask real nice for a transfer?
ReplyDeleteYou made me laugh Preppy!
ReplyDeleteoh TB - man, do i ever want to sit you down with a nice meal and then have a good long talk with you. Our Lord and Creator gave us gifts, each of us have many gifts. and as i have told jambaloney so many times over the years - use YOUR SKILLS to make money and feed your family - NEVER use YOUR GIFTS to make money! you have many gifts and many interests and that's where they should stay. they are your spiritual and emotional side of life, and we need those things to NOT MAKE MONEY from. i would also love to teach history - but how on earth can you keep that love and still walk into a classroom of 30 kids EVERY SINGLE DAY and only 2 of them a year really care???? it would kill you emotionally and spiritually.
ReplyDeleteyour job is your job. that's it. it feeds your family and allows you a little time from work to spend time with your family and hopefully attend to the things that you love. treat your job as it is - it's a job. it's a way of making money. stop trying to make it more meaningful - it isn't.
i could go on and on. i think you are a very thoughtful person and i think that we need more men like you in the world. but i cannot stand to watch (or read) you tearing yourself up. if i can provide any kind of help - i will!
jambaloney says that all of this doesn't mean that your job isn't driving you crazy...and that there isn't such a thing as a sense of fulfillment from work. jambaloney is a self-taught IT contractor who gets a real kick out of making websites for idiots and other related activities...and he makes money. but he is at his absolute happiest and best when he is outside digging trenches!
please don't be so hard on yourself! and please realize that your work has nothing to do with the fact that we found you through your blog and now have a new friend! The Lord works in very mysterious ways! we're here for you buddy!
your friends,
kymber and jambaloney
Kymber (and Jambaloney):
DeleteAt some deep level - maybe forever - I have wanted to do something meaningful, something important. I guess I feel that what I do currently does not fit that bill. Yes, I work on things that possibly make a difference in the lives of others but I have done it long enough to know that most of what I work on will go into boxes and be filed away, eventually to be destroyed. Of the companies I have worked for in this industry (7 total), 6 have either gone out of business or been absorbed into other entities, the products mostly long off the shelves. For this effort, I have received cash and paid the way for myself and my family.
Is that enough? Have I done something truly meaningful?
Part of me struggles to say yes, to say that there should be more than the simple exchange of time - really parts of my life - for the ability to pay for things.
To be fair, I have probably always struggled with the sense of my life being less than I feel it should be. I grew up on fantasies and heroic legends; the reality is that the great struggles against evil and the dragons that are in need of slaying are mostly relegated to our imaginations, leaving the more dross things of life as my reality.
I can make sense of the fact that you divide things into skills and gifts and can even understand the difference as you put it - I guess it makes question what I have as skills to make money (maybe this is part of my problem, that I either do not recognize them as such or simply don't have them as they matter in the work world). I also get that what makes us happiest is not always the most complex or difficult or even financially enriching thing that we do - I would far rather dig in the garden or watch quail than most of my work things. It is an interesting thought to me as well that what you say seems to run counterintuitively to what many say: find what you love and do that. I suppose for many - perhaps most - their loves cannot or will not do that. I wonder, on sort of a philosophical level, if that is simply putting more on them than they can bear.
My deepest fear, one I have had for years (since we are among friends and it is just us, I suppose we can just discuss this openly) is that I would get to the end of my life and have God say "I gave you these abilities and gifts and all you did is X". It is too late at that point, of course, to do more. I cannot bear the thought of living up to be less than I should be.
I shall try to be easier on myself, even if it is just for the weekend. And you are right, my blog has nothing to do with what I do but we found each other anyway. That is not a bad way to look at it.
Thank you so very much for the gift of your time in reading and responding. It truly means more than you can possibly imagine.
Lhiats, dy charrey
TB
P.S. So good news: I like to eat and I like to talk and (truth be told) I like to eat and talk, so we will all get along splendidly!
TB - way back in the day when we had dragons, needed knights and honourable gentlemen - you would have excelled and been much recquired. our world has changed and we don't appreciate those qualities so much anymore....which saddens me because jambaloney, yourself, Pioneer Preppy, Harry Flashman and my friend Matt would all have excelled! but we live in the dog eat dog world of having to pay bills by working for someone else from morn til eve. one thing i have told jambaloney for years and years is to imagine being on your deathbed, to imagine having that conversation with God. don't shy away from it. God knows that you were born out of place and time - he knows what gifts you have. he knows you have no other choice than to work to feed your family. he will be way more forgiving than you are to yourself! keep doing the good, spiritual things that you do - like be a good husband and a good father and a serious thinker. be sure to be better at those things as you can. God cares nothing about what you do for a living - nothing! and read and re-read The Last Robin's blog for empowerment of these ideas. i was constantly searching until i met The Last Robin. he felt that his life was a sham and i kept trying to tell him that if the only thing he did in his entire life was help me and jam to find and truly accept salvation....well, i think that God would be pleased with that. (The Last Robin was a Christian fundamentalist, neither jam nor i prescribe to any foundation of religious belief...just fyi)
ReplyDeletei am glad that you like to eat and talk! yer darn tootins', we'll all get along splendidly!
much love to you and yours! your friend,
kymber
Kymber - I believe with all my heart that we are placed in the time we are by God's design, so what you say bears true and He cannot possibly hold us responsible for what we could have never done but would have done but never could (even God acknowledges that temporal dislocation is relegated to Dr. Who). And you are right that God does not care what we do for a living (so far as I am aware, there is no requirement beyond earn one's bread and put aside for others) no matter how much I would like to stick that requirement there. And if I am honest, in that last conversation with God what I did for a living will matter not at all - in fact, I would surprised if it comes up at all. The other things that you mention will have all the importance in the world at that time.
DeleteInterestingly (maybe this surprises you, maybe not) I found a lot of what John Wesley wrote about in The Last Robin's obituary eerily applicable to my own situation and views on life.
TB - not sure if you ever saw this post...a tribute to The Last Robin, my Uncle Gerald. i just wanted to make sure that you saw it.
ReplyDeletehttp://framboisemanor.blogspot.ca/2014/10/trying-hard-to-live-up-to-my-promiseand.html
Thank you Kymber. That was beautiful. I read the obituary that is posted at the site but not yours before now. If his writing is so meaningful ("they, be dead, still speak") how much more must it have been to talk to him in person.
Delete