Mar
24
2009
Sunday brought me an experience which touched me with compassion. As I drove home from church I noticed a man standing at the side of the street with a sign. His sign said LAID OFF, please help. He was dressed in jeans and a tee shirt, and white running shoes. The first thing that struck me was how much like any average person he was. He could have been any friend of mine or any family member, he was approximately fifty. I realized in that moment, as I drove that the face of those in need has changed radically. Our economic recession has brought desperation to middle class families across America. Last week a friend of mine was laid off, and I know several others deeply affected by the economy. I’ve seen family members laid off, homes lost, and others struggling with the loss of their savings in this economic downturn.
Feb
06
2009
Photo By Fiancailles Flickr
Security is a perception. We are never completely safe, our situations just seem safe. We bask in the contentment of seeming safety. It’s only when disaster strikes, jobs are lost, finances are compromised or our health is jeapordized that we realize what felt safe was simply a perception. Our real security comes from within, in feeling and trusting the spirit of God in our life. It’s God’s prescence in our life that brings a true sense of feeling secure.
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Jan
29
2009
Losing our sense of security does a couple of things, it makes us panic and it makes us move in a different direction. It may not be a direction we wanted to go in, but reality has a way of saying, move your ass. Not every job can be the dream job, especially not in this economy. What a new job might be is a start in a new direction. Example; when my boyfriend Rob became a Firefighter/Paramedic it meant taking a short term pay cut from his previous career. As a Firefighter/Paramedic he’d found the calling he loved, doing work that he loves, and today with experience he makes more money than he was making in his previous field. Granted he chose to switch careers, he wasn’t forced into the situation by job cuts like others may be today. Yet the end result can be the same, short term pay cut, long term more security as well as a career you may find you love even more deeply.
A new direction can be a blessing in disguise, once you get past the initial shock and fear. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, and I’d been writing on nights and weekends for about a year when my mother got sick. I had even put together the first draft of my manuscript and sent it to my mom a month before she became ill. I’d published a few freelance pieces but with my mother’s death came a deep desire to publish my book. It meant writing on nights and weekeneds while I taught. It meant spending many vacations and weekends typing and editing over a period of several years. At times it felt endlessly painful and difficult, due to the emotional nature of the book I was writing; on healing relationships and grief.
The reality is dreams require time, patience and alot of hard work, mine certainly has. Sometimes it means working for very little while we gain the experience and knowledge we need in our new field and working another job to pay the bills. In my life the grief, my losses and the shift I’ve experienced have propelled me to this place where I’m now able and capable of helping others. I have healed; I have transformed my life through writing, therapy, keeping my faith close and simply walking through the pain when I truly thought it would kill me. It wasn’t my choice of a way to begin a new career, but today I’m happier and more peaceful than I’ve ever been. I see writing and helping other’s heal as my life’s work.
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