“I told him I wasn’t mad at him,” my friend John said. “I told him that God has bigger plans. It’ll be okay.”
And it he meant it.
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| Photo Courtesy Kirsten Michelle Photography |
As a drug representative for a major drug company, he was one of their top performers. For 23 years he had helped match the right drugs with the doctors and patients. He was the number one salesman in the district and in the top 15 percent in the nation. But still, he and 300 others drew the short end.
But from the start, he was believing it wasn’t just bad luck – that is was Providence.
Then reality hit in. “Would I lose my house? Would I lose what we had? How would I feed my family?” he asked.
“A first there were lots of tears – and fears. But as a family, we decided early on that there was something that there was great gain through this experience,” John said.
He was particularly challenged by the Max Lucado book, "Fearless."
A repeating question in the book was this: “What would do if you were not afraid?”
“It caused me to really test what I was made of. Could I have everything stripped of me, and still not be afraid?” he asked.
Unemployment is a real test of faith. “I always measured my faith year-to-year, comparing my growth as I aged. But as unemployment weighed on me it went from month-to-month, then day-to-day, and then, minute-by-minute,” he said.
Through his unemployment, John wanted his children to see his character. He knew financially they might experience hard times. Maybe the car would have to be downsized or they would have to move. But those were temporary.
“I wanted to show them that I would trust God first – and everything else would follow.”
His whole experience was one of “Lost and Found". He said this:
- I lost my hope but found my future
- I lost my footing, but found a foundation
- I lost my fear, but found faith
- I lost my grip, but found God’s hands
- I lost my vision, but found insight
- I lost my plans, but found my future
- I lost my balance but found a place to stand
- I lost my job, but I found life!
What did the experience teach you?
Have you known someone who lost their job?
How have you been blessed by them?
1 comments so far - add yours here:
As an entrepreneur you always face those naysayers in your life who for various reasons make times like these much more trying - especially in times of a deep recession that won't seem to let go of its grip on the economy. Many small business owners are looking to take on a traditional job or face the loss of everything for which they have worked.
While not the same as being fired, in some ways I think it is much worse. At least when you're fired or laid off there is a sense that it was out of your control. The sense that you were the boss that had to lay off yourself only adds to the stigma placed on you by unemployment.
For me, it's never been a matter of testing my faith that God will provide - He always has. What I find the most trying in these times is just how much we tie a person's worth to their employment. Perhaps worse, is how much we do it to ourselves.
I have found times like these to be very liberating and eye-opening. They quickly reveal what your priorities are and those of the people with which you surround yourself.
In some ways it is a blessing and opportunity that is uniquely able to bring about this clarity.
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