So this week has been interesting to say the least…
I’ve been out of college since 1999 and by the grace of God have always been gainfully employed. I’d managed to avoid or side-step a number of lay-offs and company closings, but my streak of dodging bullets ended this week. As to be expected I’ve struggled with some mixed emotions. The one thing that I know my faith has given me in a time like this is hope. It’s perhaps for this reason that I was spared this struggle in the past.
Hopeful might be the last adjective you’d expect a husband and father of two to have after he’s been laid off, but let me explain. Normally I would never compare myself or any of my life experiences with those of the saints, expect maybe St. Augustine before his conversion but hear me out. If you’ve ever studied the lives of the saints you’d know that their lives were never easy. As a matter of fact most of them had very hard and quite painful lives. It’s at these lowest points of our lives that we find ourselves the closest to our Lord. When everything is sunshine and roses we can sometimes forget that everything we have and everything we are is because of him.
Some of my favorite lines from Scripture have always been the ones about how God takes care of us:
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat (or drink), or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? – Matt 6:25-27
In times of struggle I’ve always looked to this passage and understood that God will take care of me and my family. It may not always be in the way that we are used to or how we want it, but He will be there.
