| Doubting
God's Love
When these times of trouble come
our way, our natural inclination is to doubt, not
particularly to doubt God's ability, but to doubt
His caring for us. Tell that to a person who has
never suffered trials, that God does not seem to
care, and you will be severely criticized for your
lack of faith. It's a very human reaction to question
even God, at times. I think He allows that questioning
in order to get us to fully understand His nature
and the actual extent of His caring.
We can look at Martha's rebuke of Jesus following
the death of Lazarus. "Lord, if you had
been here, my brother would not have died."
(John 11:21). She was saying, "Lord, you
could have prevented this death but you did not.
Why?" She knew that physical healing was
fully within His power and yet for some reason He
had chosen not to heal her brother. Understandably
she was disappointed in Jesus.
Are we never disappointed in Him?
Maybe it's more correct to say that we are not disappointed
in Him, but rather that we are sometimes disappointed
by His response to our need. We are not disappointed
in His ability to affect the outcome of a situation
but rather in the way He actually affects the outcome.
Martha still loved Jesus and had full faith in Him
and His power. That did not lessen the disappointment
she obviously felt. When our prayers go unanswered,
we are bound to feel the same empty disappointment.
For the life of us, we can't find the answers. Martha
said, "Lord, if you had been here...."
Job Losses Come Again and
Again
Over the course of my working career,
I have experienced five periods of unemployment.
The nature of my career is such that I have often
been with companies which for one reason or other
fail and cease business, or are bought out by other
larger companies, or go through structural changes.
All of these things can and do lead to job cuts.
The first time I lost my job, my
time of unemployment lasted three months. Naturally
there was a lot of personal stress accompanying
that loss. I had never been out of work before and
all of my previous moves from one job to another
had been on my own terms. This was entirely new
and unfriendly territory. During that three month
period, I was active in my job search and I gained
several interviews with prospective employers. Still,
it took the entire three months for me to be hired
and return to work.
Two years later unemployment hit
again. Once again, the length of time out of work
was three months. Yes, I felt many of the same stresses
I had felt the first time and I'm not sure I could
say that I felt any more confident about the outcome.
I certainly questioned "why?" just like
the first time. I thought that I had learned my
lessons in trusting God the first time. He had provided
for our every need the first time so why would He
not this time? He did, but I still felt the doubt
and fear. Perhaps I am just a slow learner.
Approximately twelve years passed
before I experienced my next job loss. My employer
at the time had been bought out by a much larger
company and I was in field level management at the
time. That is not the place to be when you are the
victim of a corporate buyout. This time there was
something different about my unemployment experience.
By this time in my life my age was becoming a factor
in the job search. I work in the high tech field
of medical electronics. In this field, just like
any technical field, age discrimination is a very
real fact of life. They may deny it all day long
but it's a fact. There comes a point in the technology
world where no matter your skill level, experience
or talents, you become unhirable. Additionally,
the fact that I had spent the previous twelve or
so years in a management role rather than on the
technical front lines did not help. This time, though
the period of unemployment, just like the previous
times lasted three months, I had far fewer interviews
offered to me. It was not a matter of fewer job
openings available. There were scores of job openings
available. I just could not get the interviews like
I had in the past. During one interview I did get,
I could sense the coldness on the part of the interviewers
when they discovered that I was no thirty year old.
Though I was highly qualified for that position
(I may have been the most qualified applicant that
they interviewed) I was not considered for the job.
Nevertheless, I ended up being hired
by another employer. This position lasted four years
and then because of changes within the structure
of the company and the particular industry that
company was in, my position was eliminated. I was
on my way home from a project out of town when I
was paged to call in. I remember driving home after
the conference call with my boss and the HR representative
where the news was broken to me, praying, "Lord,
I know you've never let me down before."
I tried to remember all the times of His faithfulness,
and my statement was more of a reminder to myself
of His faithfulness than to Him. At that moment,
it seemed almost as though a voice said to me, but
coming as a thought to my mind. "Who says
I'm going to let you down this time?" I
accepted that as a correction and a confirmation
of the reason for my faith in Him. God had always
taken care of our needs before and this time would
be no different. And like before, He was going to
provide suitable employment for me.
While Others Seem To Get The
Breaks......
We have all heard the testimony
of someone who has experienced job loss which was
quickly followed by a replacement job. Often a new
job position far better than the one lost and sometimes
the new job was found before the end of the day
of the lost job. God is certainly able to provide
such miracles and we are right to praise Him for
those answers to prayer on behalf of the recipients.
That has never happened to me. I have always had
to use up every penny of the severance pay from
the lost job and spend time drawing Unemployment
pay, which as we all know is a pittance in comparison
to the lost wages.
My previous times of unemployment
had lasted three months. Such was not to be the
case this time. This time my unemployment stretched
out for a full year. During that time period, I
could not buy an interview. I had a total of
two interviews the entire year. In spite of
scores of openings posted, and with the numbers
of those listings which matched my qualifications
exactly, I could get no response from any of them.
Not even a phone call or an acknowledgment of my
application and resume submission. That is other
than the standard form letters sent out automatically
informing me that my resume was received and if
my qualifications matched..... Well you know the
story. I was bone dry and living in a desert.
Often trials work to push people
away from God. Some will abandon God for they believe
Him to be totally uncaring and incapable and thus
irrelevant in their lives. "If God really
cared....." It's easy to understand that
sentiment. Many of us, on the other hand, find that
in those times we have no place to turn but to God.
Where do we go if we walk away from Him? I felt
like Job (if you want to understand what it is like
to feel neglected by God, read the story of Job).
This may be the end of my life, but I'm still going
to trust Him. What else can I do? To whom else can
I go?
I have always been a lover of and
a student of the Word of God and though not one
who turns to it in times of trouble only, but in
times of success as well, I did bury myself in the
Scriptures more than ever before at this time. At
the same time a sense of hopelessness was setting
upon me. The World would call it "depression."
It was not exactly that although there were periods
of emotional depression present. I was experiencing
a spiritual dryness. Something was wrong and I was
struggling to find out what it was. Lord, have
I done something to deserve this? Is there sin in
my life which I am being punished for? Lord, if
that is the case reveal it to me so I know what
to seek forgiveness for. Total silence.
A Kick In The Stomach
Often during these times of spiritual
and emotional deadness on our part, attacks will
come. I was not immune to such attacks any more
than anyone else. The attacks came my way in various
forms. One particularly hurtful one came in the
form of accusations from someone close. I was told
that the problem was a spiritual matter and that
I was suffering because of wrongs within my life.
Needless to say, that caused the floor to drop out
from under me. I was totally innocent and the attacker
was completely wrong. I will say the accusation
came with good intentions, not malice, but that
did not help soothe the wound nor did it make the
accusations accurate. I spent much time before God
asking for revelation of my sin. Total silence from
God. Nothing. I knew I was innocent of the charges
but that did not make me feel better. The only thing
that kept coming to mind was the instance when the
disciples asked Jesus about the cause of the man's
blindness. "Lord, who sinned, this man or
his parents that he was born blind?" Jesus'
answer was, "neither." The blindness
had nothing to do with anyone's sin. That passage
kept coming back to me time and time again. Besides,
anyone who earnestly seeks for revelation of sin,
either hidden or otherwise in their life will have
it revealed to them by the Holy Spirit. I quickly
learned that this mess I was in was not because
of faults of mine. No, none of us are perfect and
we seek daily to rid wrong thoughts and actions
on our part from our lives so to say I am faultless
would be incorrect, but the wrong I was accused
of was non existent. That was not the cause of my
situation.
The attack had an affect on me though.
I am a teacher at heart and in practice. I am given
to writing and instructing and in addition to my
career activities as a technical instructor (as
well as having done much clinical teaching) I have
taught Sunday School classes and other forums on
biblical subjects. It is a calling of mine. But,
that calling was directly affected by the attack
and I made the decision that I would never teach
again. No one would want to hear what I had to say
on any subject, and thus I was simply going to be
a silent spectator from this point on. If I had
formed opinions and insights due to much study of
God's Word, I would keep them to myself. I was done
with teaching.
Talents Buried In The Ground
I know that God has blessed me with
talents and skills which like they should be are
meant to be used. I'm never going to make the claim
that I am all that smart but God has blessed me
with abilities born of talents, training and much
experience over the years. My professional accomplishments
go beyond many people's within my career field.
In biblical terms, perhaps I was like the servant
given the ten talents and commanded to (because
of his ability to do so) multiply them.
Now here I was with talents and
skills and eager to use them but not able to do
so. "So Lord, what do I do with all of the
talents and skills you've given me to use?"
No answer to my question. I began to feel like God
had given me those talents and skills to use but
for some reason now He had chosen to remove them
from me. Not so much that He was removing the talents
and skills but rather removing the ability for me
to use them. It was as though He said, "I
gave them to you to use but I no longer have any
need for you to use them." I felt like
there was another version to the parable of the
Talents. "To the servant who had received
the ten talents, the master said, 'take your talents
and go bury them in the earth'." I felt
like I had been put on a shelf. There is a Scripture
reference to that somewhere but it applies more
to a time of rest. I did not need rest. I was getting
no rest from this experience. I had a different
need. I needed a way to earn my bread by the labor
of my hands and I was no longer allowed to do that.
"He Who Does Not Work...."
I felt like something or someone
(God?) had made the decision that I was no longer
going to work. Work at anything. I was to set idle
on the shelf. It was not possible for me to find
employment. Had McDonalds or Burger King posted
an ad for a floor sweeper and I was the only one
to apply for the position, I would not get the job.
When God say's you're not going to work, you're
not going to work and there is no way you can get
anyone to hire you.
I know that thinking was poor logic
for none of that made any sense. God does not work
that way and neither does the normal courses of
nature. In the "real world" if a company
is in need of a person with particular skills and
experience, and a prospective employee presents
to the company what the company needs, in the natural
course of things, an employment arrangement is entered
into. I was not experiencing the real world though.
Something else was at work and I just could not
understand or place my finger on the cause of the
problem.
While unemployed I believed I was
not living within God's Will. I was not sinning
but the state I was in was not God's Will. God's
Will was for me to be working. We may approach God
for many needs or desires within our lives and often
God will move one way or other in response to those
petitions. God's Will is sovereign and there are
certain things which we may pray for which are righteous,
but it is not within His will to move according
to those prayers. We can think of physical healing
as one example. We know with full certainty that
God is the Healer and His power and willingness
to heal are without question. We also know that
these bodies of ours are finite and there is a point
in time when we are to move on to the other side.
Though He does heal, in some cases it is not His
will to provide for a physical healing.
There are many things which are
absolutes. Gainful employment is one of those. We
may pray "Lord if it is Your Will, heal....."
but we would never pray, "Lord if it is
Your Will, let me provide bread for my family."
That prayer would be implying that it may not be
His Will for us to work to earn our bread. The idea
of that doubt is contrary to Scripture. There are
too many references to the absolute rightness of
our earning our bread by the work of our hands.
Even the prayer He taught His disciples contains
the absolute, "Give us this day our daily
bread." There is no "If it is Your
will, give us our daily bread." It is absolutely
His will. Thus it was His Will for me to be employed
and yet I was not. For that reason, I felt very
much out of His Will but powerless to do anything
about it.
A factory may close down and leave
a small town without an employer and many people
are out of work because there are no jobs to be
had. Similar situations exist in other parts of
the world where job opportunities are lacking. I
have no answer for these folks other than to feel
the pain and struggles they are going through. I
was not without work for lack of available work.
I was simply prevented from doing what should be
natural. That is, meeting the needs of a willing
employer.
So what were my prospects for life
after employment? Not enough of a financial buffer
to think about retiring. I was too young for Social
Security benefits. My online business was bringing
in a little, but not enough to consider it financially
sustaining. My wife proposed that we should sell
the house. What do we do then? Live off of the proceeds
until those run out? What then? Go live under a
bridge? If I am prevented from working for the rest
of my life, I can't even look to Home Depot or Wal-Mart
for a door greeter position. I actually did send
applications to Home Depot and other such businesses.
I received no response from them. It certainly confirmed
that I was not to work. Here I was physically and
mentally and emotionally able and ready to work
and at the height of my productivity within my chosen
career field and now it looks like I'm going to
twiddle my thumbs in idleness for the rest of my
days. That made no sense and because it made no
sense, it just about drove me batty. All I could
think about was the fact that I had so enjoyed what
I had been doing within my career and now it looked
like I'd never be able to do it again.
And where was God this whole time?
Seemingly absent from me. I reached out to Him in
desperation and not one word did I hear from Him.
Total silence from Him. I grasped for every hint
of a "Word" from within His Word and of
course He was there, but nothing answered the questions
I had. Nothing but the glaring accusation, "He
who does not work and provide for his family is
worse than an infidel." What about those
who want to work and simply are not allowed to work?
Not All Hope Is Hope
The story must continue. Again,
I hope it will be a testimony to His faithfulness
in those times when we just cannot hear His voice
and He seems to abandon us. It was quickly approaching
a year now and to this point I had one interview.
That is out of the literally hundreds of submissions
I had made to companies who were advertising for
someone with exactly my skills and experience. Along
came a prospective employer. Yes! One from within
my chosen career field. A familiar company. Once
again, I can work within hospitals, operating rooms,
ICU, ER, and all of the other familiar surroundings.
The phone interview went fantastic. "Lord,
in spite of making us wait at times, You do hear
and answer." That was followed by an in
person interview. That seemed to go ok as well.
You can't always (ok, truth is you can never) judge
the outcome until it happens with these interviews.
I felt such a sense of relief and certainly Sandy
did as well. As the experience was trying on me,
it was on her as well. A trial like this can even
put stress on the marital relationship and ours
was no exception.
Then I received a reject letter
in the mail. The company had selected someone else
to hire. What was I to think? Actually I was all
out of anything to think. As the lady had said in
her message, my pen too was completely out of ink.
That was before Christmas and that
year Christmas for us was going to be a bit sparse.
I'll state on our finances, that somehow we seemed
to be ok. We've been fortunate to have had a good
amount of savings, but over time that account would
be depleted. I was able to sell some more things
on eBay and though my online business wasn't doing
that much, a few sales came in here and there. Sandy
was given more hours to work with her employer so
that helped. I had been able to get some part time
contracting hours which brought in a little. All
and all, we did ok. We never went hungry and never
got behind on any of our bills and we were able
to live a "normal" existence. It's just
that when you don't know what the future holds,
you can only see the glass eventually becoming empty.
Conservation only goes so far without a source of
replenishment. What do you do when the glass is
empty?
Hope And Relief, Finally!
A miracle occurred in January. That
company which had interviewed me back in November
and rejected me called me again. The manager had
made a hiring mistake. Yes, he had hired a younger
guy. What did I say before about age bias in this
industry? That hire had not worked out at all and
the position was open again. This time another manager
is over this region. I was given a brief interview
which was more of a formality than anything else,
and then offered the job. The long dry desert experience
was over. I was back on familiar ground and not
only gainfully employed, in the field I am so comfortable
in and know so well.
Just When You Think The Worst
Is Past....
I thought that all was well, but
it was not. I had just passed through a year of
great uncertainty where I seriously believed that
my days of my being able to use my talents and skills
were over with. I thought that now I would be back
in a productive role and back in God's graces. Well
though I never left God's graces (in spite of how
it may have seemed to me at the time) I was not
back in a productive role at all. Almost from the
beginning of my employment with this company, I
discovered that I was not going to be allowed to
use the talents and skills I believed God had blessed
me with. Neither was I secure in this job. Hardly
a day started where I felt I could be assured of
remaining employed at the end of the day. What I
had been so expert at career wise, I now totally
failed at. I could do nothing right. This was not
rocket science. It was the same technology I was
highly skilled and experienced at and yet everything
I touched seemed to turn to junk. Every project
I was assigned failed and I was ever on the hot
seat.
Directly, that problem was owing
to the total incompetence of the boss I had. A man
who not only micromanaged us to death, but who was
so insecure that he had to retain total control
of every small detail of our job functions. Having
been in previous employment a manager myself equaling
and even higher than his position, I saw and recognized
bad management. He told me point blank that he was
not in the least interested in my experience and
knowledge of how to deal with customer situations.
He had to call the shots to the smallest detail.
That is in spite of the fact that he had no career
experience dealing with medical equipment or medical
customers. He changed rules in midstream and directions
were given piecemeal so that I could not know the
end objective but only steps as they occurred or
were dictated. It was common to be several steps
along a project or task and suddenly find myself
in hot water because the steps I was on were not
where he wished me to be.
None of that really matters in the
end if you are set up to fail in a job. This was
not something I alone experienced with that company.
I saw what was happening to some of my co-workers
and I saw myself on the same path, heading towards
the door. So after a couple of years I decided it
was time to begin looking for employment elsewhere.
Stepping Off The Cliff
Sometimes we pray for things which
we believe are totally right and yet God refuses
to answer those prayers. We believe once again that
God is letting us down. Martha said, "Lord
if you had been here, my brother would not have
died." Jesus can seemingly disappoint us.
I came across a fantastic sounding job opening.
It was exactly what I was looking for and I had
a great initial phone interview. I felt that this
was a real answer to prayer. I could even feel the
excitement in the voice of the interviewer when
she learned the extent of my experiences and understood
how they could benefit her company. Believe me,
I could not wait for the job offer and the chance
to give notice to my current boss. "You
don't appreciate and will not use my talents and
skills, so goodbye. I'm going with a company that
will!"
Sometimes we have to put a little
practical application to our faith. The old "step
of faith" thing, if you will. I was told that
if I was hired by the new company there was a good
chance that my training would take place in France.
Though their Stateside office was in the Atlanta,
Georgia area, the headquarters was in France as
well as the manufacturing of the product. My passport
had expired several years earlier. I had previously
held training and consulting sessions in parts of
Europe and Asia but that had been a long time ago
and now I was no longer traveling internationally
so I really hadn't bothered to renew the passport.
Now it looked like I might need
one again and so I figured that as a step of faith
in my "claiming" this job, I'd better
get a passport and have it ready. I didn't tell
Sandy though. I knew that she would balk at my putting
out the money for a "maybe." Her rational
was, if they want to hire you, then you can get
the passport. I know businesses don't work that
way so I went and got the thing without telling
her. After I got it, I told her. No, she was not
happy but I kept reminding her that I was believing
that God was going to provide this job. I traveled
to Atlanta for the in person interview and I really
had the sense that this was one I was going to get.
I didn't get the job. Yes, she reminded
me that now I had spent the one hundred or so bucks
for the passport for nothing. What was I going to
use the passport for now? How could I answer that?
Once more disappointed in a job search.
Things happen to us which just by
their strangeness seem to be of divine origin. I
spent the day the reject letter came rather down.
Oh well, at least I was still employed with my current
job and though I knew that my future there was uncertain,
at least for now I was employed. That very night
I received a phone call from a company who had seen
my resume on line and was very interested in talking
to me. Wow! Could this be the preverbal "when
God closes one door He opens another one"?
This has got to be a God thing for how strange is
that to get such a call out of the blue the very
night the other door is closed.
To try to shorten the story a little,
this employer also followed up with very good interviews
but someone else was hired. Oh well, at least I'm
still employed for the moment. But what is that
doing for my confidence at believing I can recognize
God's work in things? Twice now I believed I saw
God's hand at work and twice now I was wrong. Or
at least I thought I was wrong. Martha believed
that God's will was for Jesus to come and heal Lazarus.
She was disappointed because that had not happened.
She thought she knew God's will just like I thought
I knew God's will and I thought I knew how He was
going to move on my behalf. I had been wrong.
A few months later I was let go
from my job. For about two and a half years I had
felt the sword of termination hanging over my head.
The sense of loss of my ability to use any of the
talents and skills God had given me which had carried
through that year of unemployment and had continued
through the two and a half years I was with that
company. Now we're approaching four years of dryness
and a sense of almost uselessness. Once again I
am facing an uncertain employment future. Was that
last job my last one? What would I do from this
point on? Was it time to seriously consider applying
to Wal-Mart or Home Depot for one of their minimum
wage jobs?
This unemployment period lasted
almost six months. I found two more really great
employment opportunities which resulted in both
great phone and in person interviews at their company
locations. In the mean time, Sandy and I decided
to go ahead with the plans we had made before I
was laid off from the last job and enjoy that Alaska
Inside Passage cruise we had already paid for. During
the time we were on the cruise I kept reminding
both of us that the current company I was in the
interview process with would be ready to make me
an offer when we got back home.
That didn't happen though. Now I
had no prospects, but every day I spent my time
on the job search sites and faithfully sent off
resumes and cover letters. I guess I should mention
that my college degree is in business management
and my resume looked quite good and had been professionally
advised and prepared so it was a good one and that
should not have stood in my way of getting interviews.
I don't think it would have mattered either way.
I had also done all I could do to try to "hide"
my age as much as can be done on a resume while
still retaining important career accomplishments.
Why Doesn't God Answer Our
Prayers?
You see, often God will purposely
not answer prayers because He has something better
for us. He could have arrived on time and healed
Lazarus when the two sisters had requested that
He come. He had something much more spectacular
in mind. The thing is, He did not tell them what
He was going to do. He let them suffer a little
(for reasons known only to Him) of their disappointments.
"If only you had come in time, my brother would
not have died." "Lord, if you had given
me that job, I know it would have been a testament
to Your love and Your goodness. But you didn't give
me the job, Lord and I don't know why."
And so my disappointment continued and grew.
Remember the passport I had "wasted
my money on"? I sent off a resume to another
ad just like all the others. After a period of time
even forgetting which company is which so after
a while, they all run together. When I received
a response regarding one I have to go back and try
to figure out what that company is all about for
I cannot recall anything about the company which
is now contacting me. This job listing is being
handled through an agency recruiter and he tells
me that it is a company located in Quebec, Canada.
To cut the already long story down to its conclusion,
after some time of waiting and talking, they made
the arrangements to fly me to Quebec City for the
in person interview. Remember the step of faith
I had put forth by obtaining the passport for one
company which had not worked, now is a reality for
I am able to make the trip, passport in hand. So
though I thought God was going to work one way,
He did not work that way, but in a way I did not
expect. Now Sandy was more than grateful that I
had gone behind her back and gotten the passport.
Had I brought up the subject to her before hand,
chances are high that I would have found myself
talked out of it and thus I would not have had it
when I needed it. So I guess sometimes we guys do,
in spite of ourselves, make right decisions.
The interviews, both the phone and
later the in person interview in Quebec went great.
I know Sandy was really hoping for me to come home
from Quebec with the job offer but we know that
it never happens that way. There is always the period
of waiting. This would be the case here as well.
I was there on a Thursday and they told me that
by the time they discussed it among all of the other
managers there who would be party to making the
hiring decision it would be the next week before
anything was decided and an offer could be made.
So when I arrived home that Thursday night, Sandy
was a little frustrated. I attempted to assure her
this time that I was going to get this job. Something
was entirely different about the whole circumstances
of the interviewing process and besides, I had been
told off the cuff by the guy who would be my boss
that "you have my vote." So the outcome
was not in question. Now it was just the torture
of waiting until the next week.
First thing Friday morning, the
phone rang and it was the HR manager and the company
CEO. They could not wait until the next week to
make me the offer. They had found no reason to delay
the decision. It was made for them. Talk about a
time of praise and walking on the clouds.
Up to today. In November 2009 I
will have been with this French Canadian company
three years. It is by far one of the, if not the
best career opportunities I have ever had. All of
the talents and skills which God has given me I
am able to use to good advantage here. At my last
job I could do nothing. Here I can do it all. I
was the first field service person within the U.
S. for this company and I have been very busy with
the task of helping build up the service operation
here in the States. I have previous experience doing
just that. I was directly involved in the interviewing
and recruiting of our other two service reps and
have been actively mentoring them all along as they
learn the product and the technology. I have enjoyed
and continue to enjoy the favor of our Sales and
Clinical Applications team here in the States as
well as my co-workers in Canada. My boss has become
more than a boss but a friend as well. He is a boss
who is not afraid to call on me and ask my advice
and opinion on certain aspects of the operation
either involving customer service situations, service
resources or whatever, and he acts on that advice.
Not just asking as an exercise. He calls on me as
a resource for which I am most honored and appreciative.
Already I have been able to prepare and teach a
brand new service school at the factory in Quebec
(I taught it in June) and more such opportunities
will follow. I could go on and on to recount the
blessings I have enjoyed here and the opportunities
to use what God has given me to us but this is enough
to tell the story.
God does not always answer our prayers.
Or it looks to us like He is not answering them.
He did not answer Mary and Martha's prayers to come
and heal their brother. He had something greater
to perform. He did not answer my prayers regarding
any of those jobs I prayed for and did not get.
What if He had answered those prayers? I would not
be where I am with my current job. Would any of
those jobs have been good ones? As far as I can
tell they would have been, but how do I know for
sure? There are many things about the actions of
God we never know about. The "what if this
happened?" things which we will never know
the outcome of. God does not always reveal His plans
to us in full. Often He reveals almost nothing of
the things He is working out on our behalf. In fact,
we rarely know what is going on behind the scenes.
He does move though. It is the pain
we must go through while that is happening which
must drive us into His arms. So the more He seems
to disappoint us, the tighter we must cling to His
hem. That is what I have learned and continue to
learn and I hope and pray that it will be the same
for you.
This is my story. God does not work
the same way in His relationship with each of us.
God may deal with your situation entirely differently.
There is one constant though. That is, God does
care and He considers what is best for each of us.
That may not always seem like a good thing at the
time, but rest assured, at some point in time, we
will know that it is. I hope that this testimony
will provide some encouragement for others going
through rough times.
Dan W. Dooley (2009)
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