No longer Scared

I keep trying to write but when I temporarily navigate from the page, it erases everything.

I started writing this yesterday. I was scared but I am less so today. God would not leave me here or give up on me. He won't do that to you either. I know at times it seems like He is not there, but know that He is and He always comes through with your needs, not necessarily your wants.

I am quiting my job and in all this, a song is playing in my head. My dad sang it last night. He is not a singer and he often gets his words mixed up or uses the wrong pronunciation. 

He sang the words, " I don't feel no ways tired. I've come too far from where I started from.  Nobody told me that the road would be easy and I don't believe He brought me this far to leave me."

He also added on the words jokingly, "down here", because he has a bad habit of falling asleep at the kitchen table watching msnbc or cnn.

God didn't leave me and He is still here for us all. We need to be there for Him.

So yeah, I was scared yesterday. I told my employer through email (complete with a signed, scanned formal letter) that I was quitting.  I sent three emails. One to an HR representative that bounced back with the automatic message that the individual would return to their office on Wednesday. I sent a second one to another HR representative and the third to my supervisors.  When I sent the first one, I  cried.

I can't take it back. I'm leaving a place that I haven't been at too long. The previous gig was 7+ years long and I don't remember crying. I left because of terrible workplace harassment and to save my mental health. The job I'm quitting now weighs heavier on me because I am choosing to walk into the unknown. I am used to asking the Lord for signs to prevent me from making the wrong decisions. When I asked about that hospital job, God said no. I know this because He answered a prayer I had for a sign. It's wonderful when God answers like this, but I won't lie and say that when God says "no", I feel disappointed. I know He said no to protect me from something that was not a good fit for my life, but it's hard for me to grasp a new vision of my life after I've planned a bunch of crap in my head thinking He'd surely say yes.

This job that I am accepting is one I avoided praying for that sign. It's a dream and also a challenge. I will need to fully depend on the Lord to be able to do it, but it will be rewarding. I have to bear in mind the text He gave me the day I learned I would get the job: Colossians 3: 23-24.
I am doing this job for Him first. I also have in my mind my son, my student loan debt, my clients, but God has to remain first front and center as I go into this job.

When I started thinking about going to school, I wanted to do something that God would be pleased with. Yes, I could have gone to med school or something else higher paying, but I didn't want my life, my career to be about making more money than someone else. So many people are able to live happily on less and I don't need that much. I looked in the Bible in search of job ideas that would be acceptable to the Lord. I came across this:

Isaiah 1:17
Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

James 1:27 says something similar.

The first thing that comes to mind is a social worker when I read this. Next follows a lawyer. I thought about my path and how I always ended up in situations where I wanted to help someone, but never was in the position or had the authority to make the change happen for them. I struggled to find people and places that could provide aid and I realized how passionate I was about this.

When I announced to my mother that I was going to go to school for a social work degree, she said that my dad told her the night before that he thought I would make an excellent social worker. I took that as extra confirmation.

God has brought me through a lot. He brought me through a long and grueling school schedule. He was my friend when everyone abandoned me during a period I am completely at fault for.

I was at fault because I knew not to put my trust in man (Jeremiah 17:5), but allowed Satan to trick and tempt me into a doomed relationship with a person who would have killed me if it had not been for the Lord's protection. The Lord was there when I became a single parent and beat myself up for compromising so many times. I was a recluse and He was there. I am the most private I've ever been and He's still here. I was involved in a terrible accident last year and He was still there. And so much more.

God did not bring me this far to leave me.
I should not be scared