when the WAITING is the hardest...

Does your mood ever echo the weather? Like yesterday when it was B-E-A-UTIFUL outside, it was easy to feel weightless and carefree. Ready to laugh and have fun. Then today...ick. Gray skies. Brown grass. Trees with no leaves. Colllddd. It's easy to want to mope and be lazy. Weather really does affect how we feel a lot.

It's the same way when everything seems to be going wrong in your life. It can feel like gray skies all the time. Many of you know I was laid off from my job as a news reporter. So, at the age of 25 (it really does feel old!) I had to move home with my parents. Away from most of my friends and all the 'action.' I've sort-of been having a 'career-crisis,' as I'm not sure where God would have me go next.

Don't get me wrong, I've had a job pretty much constantly since then, but as far as a 'career,' I'm still trying to decide what to do. It has been really hard. There are so many things I've never considered before, and lots of jobs that I think I could do well and enjoy. How to choose which direction to take your life in, when there are so many that could be right?

By praying. Tilling the soil (aka doing the work: applying for jobs, trying new things) and trying the doors God opens. Sounds so simple. Unless there are no open doors. You've heard it said,'the waiting is the hardest part.'

Geesh! It's true. In a society where we all want it NOW, or where you're only as good as the job you hold...it's hard to slow down and take a look around. It's tough to say no to the quick and easy, while waiting on the best.

A couple of years ago, before I got my job at WPDE, NewsChannel 15 I was offered a good job at a bank. I had no other job offers at the time. Everything in the world said I should've taken the job. But, as soon as the man offered it to me, I had a feeling (Holy Spirit) that it wasn't right for me. That was it, a feeling.

BUT, I had been praying about it a lot. That 'feeling' was my answer. I knew God's will was for me to be a reporter. More waiting. Trusting. Hoping. I felt like an idiot when I told my Dad I turned the job down. I knew people thought I was crazy. But I KNEW God had something else for me.

Not too long afterwards, I sent my tape in to NewsChannel 15. The rest is history. If I had taken that job at the bank, I probably wouldn't have even applied at the TV station. And I would've gone to work every day knowing I wasn't in God's will.

At almost the very second my boss told me they couldn't afford to pay me anymore, I knew I was supposed to come home. It wasn't easy going from working a great job, being totally independent to coming home with nothing. It's still not fun to tell people I live at home right now.

It's easy to get discouraged about my future and see only gray skies ahead. But, since I've been here I've had several confirmations that this is where I'm supposed to be right now. This 'waiting' has been longer and harder than the last one, but God was faithful then and He never changes.

Some verses that help me:

Jeremiah 29:11
"For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord. 'Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a futre.'

Romans 8:28
'And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, for those who have been called according to His purpose.'

Deuteronomy 4:31
'For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath.'

2 Timothy 2:13
'if we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself.'