Thursday Thoughts

I'm sure we've all heard the expression, "The Lord works in mysterious ways."  I've come to realize this isn't true.  It's no mystery to Him; He knows exactly what He's doing.  And if we pay attention, we can see His hand at work and understand the reasoning behind His actions.  We've had some experiences of late that have proven this.

 - My daughter A graduated last May and got her degree in creative writing with a minor in religious studies. It has always been her desire to work in ministry, preferably music but wherever the Lord leads her is fine.  She'd been looking into different churches to see if any were looking for worship leaders or anything to do with music, but she found that most churches don't want to hire women for those positions.  Even as she spoke to some folks in the church, they discouraged her from going into those kinds of fields which broke her heart, because she feels that God gave her this talent so that she would use it for His glory.

 - When she came home after graduation, A began applying to all different companies looking for work.  Her biggest disadvantage is that she has absolutely no job experience.  Zero.  Zilch.  Nada.  Her father wanted her to focus on her studies and keep her GPA up so she wouldn't lose her scholarships, and quite frankly no job was going to pay enough to cover the costs her scholarships were paying, so it was best she not work.  Unfortunately this has had a negative effect on her job hunting now.  She couldn't even get a job at Chick-fil-A.  She went on several interviews but nothing came of any of them.

 - There was one place she was thinking of applying - a local children's home/orphanage that is a Christian ministry.  She'd volunteered there in past summers and really felt led to this place.  I told her to volunteer first and pray about it.  Many of the children at this orphanage aren't orphans in the true sense; they are in this home because they've had to be taken from their homes, either because their parents can't or won't care for them.  These are children who already feel rejected and unloved, their futures uncertain.  I explained to my daughter that  taking a job there just to get a paycheck would be the wrong attitude; if she decided to leave and the children had become attached to her, what would they conclude?  That they aren't worth anyone's time.  I wanted her to be sure this was what the Lord was calling her to do.

 - We watched as A went to interview after interview, applied for job after job, and the doors kept closing.  In the meantime she did volunteer work at the orphanage and continued to be drawn to the work that was being done there.  A friend of hers from our old church who works there now encouraged her to go ahead and apply for a position.  After discussing it with her friend, with me, and praying about it, she decided this was where God was leading her, and she put in an application.

 - A week went by with no answer.  She commented to another friend, a girl who worked at the orphanage but now works at our old church's office, that she'd applied but hadn't gotten a call.  This friend spoke to someone at the orphanage and told them about A.  Lo and behold, my daughter was called in for an interview.  She was told she'd get called for a second interview, and that call came before she'd even gotten back home.  She had her interview with HR, then interviewed for yet another position, and before she left she was given an address to a lab to get her drug testing done.  As I told my daughter, they don't send people out to have drug tests done unless they intend to hire, since drug tests cost money.  Basically she's "hired pending test results".  We are so excited, because one of the things she was told was that they need someone with musical talents to help with their music program.  See how nicely God worked that out?

 - But it doesn't end there.  I had been planning, since the beginning of the week, to take my youngest son and daughter to Lion Country Safari today (my oldest son has to work).  I found out yesterday that A has to take some paperwork to the orphanage today.  The offices open at 9am, so by the time she got out there, turned in the papers and got back home, it would be close to 10am.  Lion Country Safari opens at 9:30am, but it's a good 1 1/2 hours drive.  We'd miss out on so much, it didn't make sense to go today.  So we decided, maybe tomorrow will be better.

 - As I thought about it, I checked their website and found that Lion Country Safari has a water park area.  I hadn't seen that when I first looked on the website, but it changes things.  My son E doesn't have sandals - typically when we go to the parks he wears sneakers.  That gives me today to get to the store and get him some sandals, plus I can do my grocery shopping for the week and not have to worry about that either.  Once again, my plans got changed, but I see how God did it so that we can enjoy our time at this park even more.  Isn't the Lord sweet in His dealings with us?

Stop and look, listen, pay attention.  God's ways aren't all that mysterious.  He does what's best for us, even when we don't know what that is.  Have a blessed day.