Miracles out of Heartache: I'm Heading Back to Work

Me in front of my new office, and putting on
a brave face before going into my second interview.

Cancer is not the first obstacle that has tested my hope and gladness this past year.  I have worked for child welfare for the past six years, and spent one year in child protective services, until they realized I was likely going to cry more than the kids  when they would have to be removed from their home, so they moved me to a job in prevention. As a prevention worker I worked with families to maintain their children in the home, and did weekly home visits with families.

I spent several years in the “field”, and saw a lot of dysfunction and heartbreak, and really started to become burnt out. I decided it was time for me to look at other options and so I applied for five promotions within child welfare where I could distance myself from being on the front lines.

 Every time I had an interview I entered with confidence that this was the job God had for me, because each opportunity progressively seemed to fit my skill set and needs better.

Well…although I consider myself an outstanding interviewer I was proven wrong time after time. God kept having to remind me that He had a plan for my future, and I had yet to discover it.

In between my second and third year of graduate school I came up with a way to improve the prevention model within child welfare.My administration liked the idea and so I spent the summer researching and writing protocol for the new program I had developed.

Last year, At the end of the summer, my office decided to expand the prevention program and hire a new prevention supervisor. Since I had worked on developing a new model for prevention, that my administration had been eager to implement, I had high hopes that I would be the most feasible candidate

My interview was a year ago almost to this very day, it was August 16^th 2012. The interview went perfectly, and I had what I was told was a “Knocked it out of the park” performance.

After a weekend of anticipation, first thing Monday morning I got called into the office. I expected to be briefed on a transition plan for coming from out of the field and into a cushy supervisor position, but instead I heard those familiar words, " you did not get the job".

I had been rejected yet again, and I was furious. I was so mad that I wondered “Why I even served a God that seemed to not care about my needs, and what I wanted”. I mean my husband and I volunteer in leading children’s church every Sunday, we pray, we give, we seem to do a lot of things right…

The disappointment really hit me hard, and I spent a week at home moping and evaluating my options. I decided I could get one thing right, and so I finally made the call to a specialist for a third  opinion on what was going on with my health. I had struggles with pain, and undergone tests and minor surgery all with no avail to the problems I had lived with for several years..

From that disappointment, in the midst of feeling lost and abandoned I made a phone call that started a process that changed my life. In the midst of despair God led me to make a call that eventually led my family and I to a diagnosis of Stage IV Ovarian Cancer.

After the big disappointment with my job I didn't recognize Jesus walking next to me, and leading me to where I needed to go. After my second surgery I asked my oncologist how long I had before the Cancer would have taken me down.  She estimated that I had only weeks, maybe a couple of months, before my body began shutting down from being overburdened with Cancer.

This makes the crushing experience with my job that at first was perceived as abandonment a true miracle. If I had gotten that job I wouldn't have made that phone call to the specialist, and would have just kept going until my health completely suffered.

A few weeks ago I took a brave step in making a decision to return to work and enter the interview room one more time. After a lot of stress and two interviews I finally heard the words I had been longing to hear,  " you got the job"! I will start my new job tomorrow at DHS's state office where I will work on policy writing, training, and developing a new program to assist incarcerated women in developing transition plans for their unborn children. 

The opportunity is a true miracle, and in fact a much bigger promotion then any of the jobs I had interviewed for before. I challenge you today to look for the miracle that either have or will come out of the disappointment or trouble you are facing. Miracles don’t always happen as we expect them to, but in faith we know that God loves us and can give us hope no matter how troublesome the future appears. Choose hope and  believe that miracles can happen and will happen when you submit your life to God’s plan.