(Un)Employment

So as you may know, I am a speech-language pathologist. I used to work in schools and nursing homes (SNFs) and always had entirely too many places of employment at one time. I was always busy and working. Mostly I couldn't say no when there was money to be had. Also, I love what I do. I couldn't imagine not doing it. I figured I'd be one of those moms that worked a couple days a week just to keep my sanity and skills up. I thought, 'what would I ever do if I didn't work... I'd go crazy!'

Once I was finished with the 2008-2009 school year in June, 2009, I quit all my jobs and moved home with my parents for the month of July. We got married August 1st and then I moved to Tri-Cities with Blake after our wonderful honeymoon. I didn't work for the months of July and August, but they were very busy months so it didn't seem strange.

I was forever done working in the schools (if I could help it) and decided to work for a contracting agency doing local contracts. I also said I'd try to have only one job at a time, in order to focus on being a wife. Ha! Little did I know, that wouldn't be a problem.

My first contract was awesome. I worked in outpatient pediatrics, with the occasional adult patient here and there, at a great hospital in Richland. It was definitely my favorite setting to work in so far (I still haven't done home health though). I loved working with kids and loved the no IEP, no report card, no meetings aspect of it. I love that the kids come to me, no tracking them down and no making up minutes when they don't come.
I got the contract at the hospital because they had hired several people that couldn't start until later in the Fall. So when my 13 weeks was up, there was no chance they'd extend me and my staffing manager couldn't find  anything else in the area. I considered taking a travel assignment in Moses Lake or Colfax but just couldn't bring myself to live apart from Blake four months after finally getting to live with him, in the same town and house.

So it was unemployment for me.

A week off was nice, two weeks okay, three was boring and by the fourth week I was sleeping till three pm and staying up until all hours of the morning. I was so sick of TV. About a month of wasted days and barely waking up in time to make dinner when Blake got home from work. It was pretty sad.

I was still going to Women's Bible study Tuesday nights. Sometimes I would barely get up and shower in time to make it to study at 6:30 pm. That was rock bottom. It's so fortunate that I did have Women's study, or I'd have had no direction and not much for support. Blake wasn't happy that I slept all day and really, neither was I.

Come January, I had to do something. I stopped feeling sorry for myself, first off. I also made myself get up and out of bed when Blake did and used that time to read my Bible and do my Bible study homework. This was the beginning of my heart transformation.

I started to realize how selfish and faithless I had been. My attitude had been horrible. I was so proud and so blind... Still!

It was through those morning hours in my Bible, through emails with godly women and through conversations during our small group time at Bible study that I saw how far from my walk with God I had wandered. More on that later maybe.

It was during this time of unemployment that I learned to have faith and lean on God again. This was the second ring of my wake-up call.

Unemployment taught me that I am not what I do. Although I do believe that God had a purpose in me being an SLP, I certainly fit the description, and love it... This did not define me. My success, income and knowledge did not make me who I was, it was not my worth. I was not lost without it. HE defined me.

Unemployment taught me to surrender to God, to trust Him to provide for our family, to have faith in HIS greater purpose and to praise Him in that situation.

Most importantly, unemployment taught me to share these things with my husband. We had to have faith together. We had to pray about this together. We needed to learn how to deal with issues together and with God's will and plan in mind... not our own!

Eventually I did find work. At the end of February I had a new contract at a SNF in Hermiston, OR. It opened suddenly and I filled it just as quickly. This was the Lord's provision and I rejoiced in it!

I began a new chapter of work with a renewed heart and renewed faith. Unemployment was a weird thing, and certainly not something I ever thought I'd experience as an SLP! This was clearly another way that God was working in our hearts and marriage to help us get started off on the right foot. I think that if it had not been for that period of time with a tight budget and a stark reality of just how much debt we had.. We wouldn't be on the path we're on now. We would have easily been pulled back into our pride and materialism and selfishness. God knew, as He always does, that we needed some more time in the desert to make good habits and for Pete's sake to trust HIM!