You Follow Me.

Oh the week I’ve had.

It started on Monday with me waking up and looking online for job opportunities. Cause see here’s the thing, I’m collecting unemployment while not working right now. But, as with anything there are certain policies that you have to maintain in order to keep receving those monetary provisions… So every two weeks, I have to fill out some forms that say that I have looked for work during those weeks.

Soooo, Monday morning I got online and found two jobs that were in the realm of my experience, (mostly office admin stuff) and sent over my resume. Well, two hours later I had emails from both asking to set up over the phone interviews.

Enter panic mode.

Since I stopped working in September, one thing I knew, since the moment I got laid off, was that God closed the door on that job for a reason. But I’ve since struggled with what that looks like. Does that mean a part time job? A different kind of full-time job? Is my photography going to take off somehow? My spirit, deep down was telling me that a full time job was out, but my flesh was battling between living by faith and telling myself that I had to be a responsible adult and just do what had to be done. Whether I was happy or not. So when I got a request for phone interviews, it all became real. Before, I could just imagine what I wanted to do, now I had to make a decision. Faith or flesh.

I thought about it all of Monday. “Do I even make the appointment? If I do, what will I do if they want to meet with me again? What if they actually offer me a job?” I decided to make the appointment and see what happens. After talking with them on Tuesday and setting up an in-person interview, a heaviness fell on me. I struggle with typing that, because it sounds so dramatic, but that’s the only way I can describe it. I was thinking about it and worrying about it and dreading it so much that I was exhausted. I had plans that night to meet with some old small group girls and I was in the area, really early so I headed to Shane’s house to kill some time. I started to talk to him about it and for the first time that day, almost started crying. It was like my spirit and my flesh were battling so hard against each other and I was just barely containing it. I headed off to meet the girls and was soooo encouraged by them. I shared a little bit about my day and about what my heart was feeling and they really pushed to me follow what my spirit was saying. I left there and that heaviness was gone.

Of course that didn’t keep me from thinking about it, but as I drove home I listened to one of my all time favorite albums right now. Amanda Cook’s Brave New World is so incredibly good. I literally could say nothing bad about it. Jesus has been using it to speak into my life and to open up the box that I had unknowingly put Him in. Her song, ‘The Voyage’ started playing and I lost it.

When I got home, I went about my nightly routine of face washing and teeth brushing, grabbed my bible and began to read. Acts 2.

‘I see that the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me.
No wonder my heart is glad, and my tongue shouts his praises! My body rests in hope.
For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your Holy One to rot in the grave. You have shown me the way of life, and you will fill me with the joy of your presence.’ – Acts 2:25-28

And the tears fell again. I went to bed praying these words. Speaking them over and over again.

Wednesday morning I had some reading to do for a bible study that me and Carly are doing together, Margaret Feinberg’s, The Scared Echo. The chapter is called ‘You Follow Me’ and she talks about how Jesus asks us to follow him and not compare ourselves self to other people’s abilities or walks in life. There are so many good things in that chapter but this blog will take you hours to finish if I include them. After reading it, I felt such a sense of confirmation. Like my spirit and my flesh were finally joining the same team.

I still had that interview scheduled for Thursday at 2pm and the more I thought and prayed about it, the more I felt God releasing me from having to go to it. So this morning, I emailed the guy and told him that I wouldn’t be able to make it!

Now, I’m still left with, “Ok… so what are you going to do?” Well, I still don’t have a definitive answer on that… but here’s the plan:

• I’m going to push my photography a ton. Mini shoots, regular shoots, weddings, all of it.
• I’m also going to pursue different avenues of my photography; selling prints, etc…
• A part time job has to happen. And it really needs to be in an area of something I enjoy doing. A bookstore, a bakery, a photography studio etc..

None of this is going to be easy. Taking that interview and taking a full time job would have been easy and comfortable. But God’s not asking me to be comfortable right now. He’s asking me to live in faith. To trust him. To believe in His love for me and walk in his promises.

This year has already been a time of new season, and a growth that I never expected. And I’m SOO excited and scared and happy-dancing about what the rest will bring.

This post was long… my word counter is saying…. 1,008 words. Dang. If you made it through, you get brownie points. Actually, if you made it to this point leave me a comment saying “Dang girl. You write a lot!” lol

I’ve got a bunch of ideas for blog posts coming so make sure to check back!