I started writing this post last year. It was a time in my life where I had graduated college, didn’t have a job and had plenty of bills to pay. It was a hard time in my life, but I think it’s a time that A LOT of people go through – whether it’s right after college or after many years of being in the workforce. And either way, it’s not easy. BUT be encouraged, friends. It gets better. I finished it up today with where I currently am. Here’s my story.

I’ve started writing this post so many times. But it’s hard and normally I don’t do that kind of stuff. I brush it off and wait for it to pass but that is not how God is glorified. He is glorified in our hardest moments, the nitty gritty ones where we have to surrender to Him, completely. The ones where we wrongly question His sovereignty and His plan even though He continually prevails time and time again. I have been doing a Bible study with She Reads Truth and last night I read:

Have you ever asked for prayer simply because you could not pray on your own? Have you ever uttered “pray for me” and meant “pray instead of me, because I just can’t do it”?

If prayer is a picture of believers lifting one another before the Lord, then there are times I have been full-on carried. Not just walked beside or agreed with, but picked up from the pit and held high before the Lord, my spiritual self limp and lifeless, in need of the life-breath from my Savior. It’s a metaphor that sounds melodramatic until you’re in the thick of it, too spent to sigh another “please” or “amen”.

And maybe not having a full-time job wasn’t that bad, but the questions, assumptions and rejection letters built up. I had applied for over 40 jobs since I started looking and of those, I had only heard back from five (well, unless we are counting rejections too…but let’s not go there). I had whispered the words, “pray for this one” as I began applications and phone interviews.

Two years ago, I was prompted by God to change my major and I know that in following His plan for my life, He will be glorified. But still I waited. I began to wonder where God was and why I had even listened to him anyway. Maybe I should have just stuck with math and hopefully had a better outcome. Maybe I had heard Him wrong after all! A lot of self-doubt crept in.

When I finally got my interview a few months later, it felt like my only chance. And of course, I jumped at it. At first, I loved it but slowly I started to fall into the every day pace and the retail-type hours were really getting me down. I worked later in the day and didn’t have two consecutive days off. I realize that this is reality for a LOT of people, but it it bothered me enough to do something about it. So I did. I had a few friends who told me about how much they loved their jobs and that I should get on there. I was very interested and asked one friend forward my resume to the HR department. A few weeks later, I heard back that they wanted to have a casual conversation about the positions that they were hiring for. The week before our wedding, I was offered the job.

As soon as we got back from the honeymoon, I had my first day. We did all kinds of fun orientation type stuff and I just knew from the beginning that this is where I’m supposed to be. For the next few weeks, I spent all of my time in and out of the office studying for the big SAFE test so that I could become a Mortgage Loan Originator. I felt really great about it and had never studied harder for an exam.

It was during these weeks that I wrote the Be Still post. I wanted to remind myself that “The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still“. I knew that if it was God’s will for me to pass, I would. If not, I wouldn’t.

At the test, they wave a metal detector around you and it’s all pretty intense. But I went through the test question by question with a growing fear that I don’t know enough questions to get a passing score. I prayed. As I submitted it, I held my breath. A big fat “FAIL” showed up.

REALLY!? HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?

On the drive back home, all of the self doubt came flooding back. What would I do now? What if I lost my job? I thought this is where I was supposed to be. And mainly, how could I have studied for over 125 hours and still fail? I prayed. And I waited.

I got a call the next morning, they asked if I would be interested in another job in the company that did not require this license. YES YES YES. Of course. Like I said, even up to this point I completely thought that this was where I was supposed to be. And that’s when I realized. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be a loan originator at all. I ended up having an interview that very same day and was given the job on the spot.

I started Monday.

Maybe it’s humiliating and scary to post this for the entire world to see, but maybe it will encourage someone. Or maybe sometime in the future, I’ll need to come back to this again. To come back and remember that God is sovereign and His plan is good.

So, future me (and everyone else reading this), know that no matter what you are waiting for, expect it to be downright hard. It’s hard not to complain, to doubt and to worry but I’m learning that those things are harmful to yourself and to your testimony. You can’t be serving God fully if you are caught up on waiting around for the perfect job, the next phone call or an email reply. Instead, you need to pray hard and listen closely – God’s plan is always good.