No, I Don't Have a Job Yet.

This is all I've got right now.

The word patience means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us. --Henri Nouwen 

Do you know what you’re doing yet next year? Have you heard about a job? You do have a job lined up don’t you? Has anyone given you the final nod for next year?  You at least have something unofficially, right?

There are lots of ways to ask it.  But only one answer.

No. 

It’s not an easy answer to give.  It’s not an easy thing to have to say over and over again.  It doesn’t matter that I know people are asking because they’re genuinely interested or concerned, or even just because it’s something that—for them-- is safe and easy to bring up. 

It’s really hard for me.

I’ve put in applications, e-mailed principals, had interviews and meetings with department heads and assistant principals.  I’ve gotten really positive feedback and feel generally good about my job possibilities. 

And now, there’s nothing much I can do but wait.  Try to wait patiently.

Waiting patiently is not an easy thing for me to do.  I’m a smart, capable woman, and most times there’s something that I feel like I can be doing to move the situation along, to give myself an edge, to be proactive so I don’t feel like I’m sitting on my hands.  Not right now though.  Right now, I’ve done what I can do and I need to take my hands off of things and just see what happens. 

It’s this waiting, this uncertainty that is much worse than the idea of being unemployed for me.  Which is also why every single person who asks me, who requires me to say that I don’t know yet, frustrates me so much—because it reminds me that there is nothing I can do and no answer I can give.

This struggle to Wait Patiently is, in some ways for me, the whole point.  There are things worth waiting for, and there is value in learning to wait patiently even when it’s easier to start taking steps towards something—anything—that will produce results faster.  I’ve known since about September of 2012 that by September of 2013 almost nothing in my life would look the same—but I wasn’t—and am still not—exactly sure what that new sort of life would look like. 

Wait and see.  Wait and be patient.  Wait because what you’re seeking, what will come is worth waiting for.  

Most days, in my own heart, I’m doing a pretty good job of recognizing that everything is going to be just fine.  And then someone asks me about it and even though they don’t mean it that way, I hear, “Are you kidding me? Why on earth don’t you have a job yet?  No good, Meg.”  There have been times I’ve been tempted to start wearing a sign which reads, “No, I don’t have a job yet.  Yes, I find that stressful,” on the front and “IF I PROMISE I’LL TELL YOU WHEN I GET A JOB, WILL YOU STOP ASKING?” on the back.   Somehow I doubt that’s the right way to get people to stop saying anything. 

The process of waiting is so incredibly difficult, but part of me is glad about that because it means I won’t be quite the same afterwards as I was before.  I might be quicker to trust next time.   I might find patience easier and resting in God’s timing that much more comforting.  He who has begun a good work in me—and I believe this is one of His good works—will carry it on to completion.

I’m never going to be perfectly at waiting patiently—that’s not how this ends—but there’s still a reason—a good one—that I’m learning more about how to do it.

The point of all this is not to say, “Please ask me about my job so I can be refined more intensely.”  (In case you are wondering the earliest I’ll know is June 24.  There’s really not much point in asking before then).  It’s also not to say, “Don’t be surprised if I bite your head off if you ask me about this.”

The point is that this is hard for me.  But it’s worth it.