As any of you that read this blog know, I have been unemployed for starting my ninth month now... dang that is a long time when you say it out loud... I've applied for easily over 100 jobs in that time, plus dropped off, emailed or mailed resume's to numerous other companies both in my "line of work" and in other avenues I felt I was qualified to work in... All this to receive only 1 interview to date and one recent email from a company saying they just wanted to be back in touch with me. So needless to say I have had lot's of time on my hands for quite a while, and well, this is what's been happening:
Of course, a little over a month after losing my job, we welcomed our first child, Samuel Thomas Patrick into this world. We figured that I would surely find new employment before Michelle's maternaty leave ran up in early January - heck, that was 3 months! Once the first of the year came, still no job for me, and Michelle needed to head back to work. Since then, I have become a "stay at home dad", while continuing to look for employment and researching other possibilities. I also studied for and passed my LEED AP exam (if you are curious what that is, look
here), hoping this gained accreditation would help my marketability, while also adding a tool to my toolbox that I was interested in having.
So, why have I still not found a job? Yes, the job market is bad - especially in construction, and especially in construction in Arizona. But surely something should have panned out, heck I did apply to jobs that were listed which should mean those companies were actually hiring, right? Well, this is what I have been thinking might be part of the reason for this extended length of time in unemployment...
When we moved to Arizona, it was an amazing site to see how everything just "happened to work out" for us to move here as smoothly as we were able to... I had been looking at going back into construction and trying to find Project Manager positions to get into after mainly focusing on running my small video production, etc. business for the previous 3 years before that summer of 2006. Well right about the time I started looking, I received a phone call from a high school friend back in Arizona that asked me what I was doing for work those days. I told him about how I just started looking for jobs actually, and was interested in doing construction Project Management. Funny thing, he said, cause I was calling to ask if you would be interested in just such a position with a company I work with here in Arizona. I flew out to Arizona within a month (if not sooner) "interviewed" with the company, they offered me the job and we moved to AZ within 3 weeks! We were able to find someone to not just sublet the apartment we had 6 months left on, but they actually took over our lease - releasing us from any of the legal ramifications of the lease we had signed... heck they even bought our washer and dryer that we could not take with us - and they just happened to be moving to Colorado from Phoenix! We were able to find an apartment for a good deal in that short amount of time, pack everything up (thanks to some help from some great friends) and be out here to AZ in the weekend before I was to start my job on Monday.
I tell this long story because it is a piece of how God worked to bring us out here... and Michelle and I agree that it was totally His doing. So as we have been here in Arizona, we have moved on with life, but God has still been moving. It has been amazing to see how God has used us here in Arizona - even though I had no idea He would use us the ways He has, and it has been amazing to see how He has used others as well as our current church home to speak so strongly to my life (and Michelle's).
So what does all this have to do with my job situation you might be thinking? Well, through these nine months (man, that does sound long!) God has really been working on my heart and my view on things in life. He has blessed me with some amazing bonding time with my first child, my first son... that is priceless! Through that He has shown me how very important my family is... and how strong my desire is to be there for my wife and kids as much as possible as we all "grow up" together.
More than that, and probably the strongest work of all, my desire for God has been growing exponentially over these nine months. As our pastor at our church put it, the "coins have dropped" for me. I have been given the time to think about what my passions are, and what my heart truly desires... and what I have "discovered" - or rather what God has revealed to me - is that He is my biggest desire of my heart. Currently going through the book of Acts with my Tuesday morning men's bible study group, God has revealed to me more about this incredible account of the early church than I had realized before. Specifically, just to see how these men of God truly did give up everything to follow Him and to spread the Good News that is the Gospel. It has me ask of myself, "have I given up much, let alone everything, to follow Him?" In our current times it is hard to know what exactly that means... BUT a door has been cracked open for me to look in and contemplate... something I never thought I would do... full time ministry. I will write more about this at a later time, but for now...
God please lead me and give me clear direction on how to lead my family. I desire to be close to you... I pray that whatever or wherever I am supposed to be next, that it would be somewhere doing something that I can become more alive; somewhere that I can best use my passions and gifts together to glorify you the best I can. Thank you for how You have been working in my life and for what You are about to do in my life. It is through your Son that I ask all these things. Amen
John 16:33 "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you
will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (emphasis added :-))
