Unemployment

Eleven and a half years ago, Cuesta College offered me "temporary, part-time" employment as an instructor in their Student Life and Leadership department. Twenty-three semesters later, they decided they no longer had the money to pay for my "temporary" employment. To be fair, Cuesta has faced some serious budget problems for years now, so I am fortunate they kept me for as long as they did. But they needed to pay for  things like math and English, so they cut the unimportant stuff: classes where I teach students to be better listeners, to serve their community, to seek to understand one another.

I found out sometime last October that my position would be eliminated. They waffled for a while on when exactly that would happen, but by December I knew it was the end. Going to work for 2 months when you know they don't think you are valuable enough to keep around? It's tough. I spent hours sitting in meetings, listening to administrators talk generally about budget cuts, as though it wasn't affecting my life in a deeply personal way. Because I loved my students. I loved teaching. I believed strongly that the things I taught were so much more valuable than chemical equations or conjugating french verbs. And it was hard to say goodbye.

My students were so compassionate in those last few weeks. They nominated me for a teaching award, and they threw me a party, complete with gifts, food, and a scrapbook they had made for me. I am so grateful that they cared, and that they did something about it. The things we do for each other matter.

Sometime in November, we were at church on a Sunday morning, singing a song about God's grace and love. A line in that song suddenly caught my attention: "It is for freedom that I am set free." I remember it because it was the first moment that I could see my job loss in a new way. I was being set free, and God was doing this on purpose for my freedom. I had told God many times that I would never leave this job on my own, so if He wanted me to move on, He would have to make it happen. He was making it happen. And it was because I was not brave enough to imagine a new life on my own. But God is. He knew it was time and He knew that I needed someone else to make the decision for me. He knew that if I spent my whole life teaching part-time at our local community college, I would always wonder what else was out there. And He knows now what those future plans are, even though I have no idea.

When you tell someone you're losing your job, the next question is always, "What are you going to do now?" Saying, "I don't know," is such an unsatisfying answer, but the truth is I don't know. No, that's not entirely true. I'm going to do the things that only I can do. I'm going to be a wife to a husband whose heart only I know, and a mommy to two little ones that will accept no substitute. I'm going to make our house a home and enjoy time to myself. I'm going to try sewing something other than a straight line, and I'm going to use the bread-maker that sits lonely in the cabinet. I'm going to write blog posts at 12:23am, and I'm going to watch all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls on DVD. I'm going to read God's word, and write in my gratitude journal, and be open to whatever is next. But I have this sense that "next" may not come for a while. And I'm good with that.

One of my favorite things to do is blog-reading. There are so many amazing people in this world, with inspiring things to say, and I love to drink it all in. I recently found this beautiful post that says what I am feeling so much better than I could say it myself. And I'm going to copy and paste it below, even though I'm sure that's breaking all kinds of blog-etiquette, simply because I want you to read it and I know most of you would never click on that link above.

"When the future looms hazy and distant and wide open without the clearest sign of what next step to take-well-I don’t have answers for that.

It’s a bit like standing on one side of Lake Michigan and knowing that the other side is there but all the squinting in the world won’t bring up a tree line. The first time I stood on a storied pier and took all of that water in, it felt like my eyes were just falling into the familiar. Oceans don’t have visible boundaries. In my little world, lakes always did.

It’s hard to know how to process that. To know that there is a boundary and that every glint and ripple is contained within it.  We do the same with life, squinting to fill in the lines of when we might reach the other side.

Being? Resting? Waiting for the boundary line to creep up over the horizon? That feels unnatural.

But God has said, “Be still and know.” Yes. We know Him in the stillness. We hear Him. We see His hand when we rest from our striving.

There’s this, too. Sometimes? In the stillness? Something rises up. A different kind of knowing grows in the space of quiet, rest, being. It’s the kind of knowing that fills in the lines of the other side a bit. It writes stories on our hearts and uncovers dusty corners full of things that need to be told.

Sometimes next isn’t drawn out in the hustling and reaching and hurry upping. It comes in the waiting and stillness and quiet."

So if you ask me what I'm going to do next, I'm going to wait in the stillness and quiet. And I'm going to appreciate every minute of it.


By the way, this is the song we sang in church that November morning. If you are a Christian-music fan, I highly recommend taking a listen. You'll probably be glad you did.