For a long time, I’ve been seeking employment. For over seven months, to be exact. I don’t write much about this. It’s an exhausting and often discouraging effort. Ironically, it requires strength and hope to keep moving forward.
I feel like the constant process of applying to jobs only to receive rejection after rejection can begin to break anyone down – even the most ambitious, confident person. So that explains it. The reason I have chosen to refrain from writing about this part of my life is because it has begun to tear apart the little bit of confidence I’ve worked hard to build up over the years.
That’s really somber. But it’s also the plain truth.
I walked into the new year really believing that if Abba did not open doors to employment for me, He would at least continue to speak clarity into this process.
I started this journey off knowing full well what I wanted to do. If my heart was for Abba and Him only, then why was He not opening doors for me? Instead, He was only closing doors, even when some doors seemed totally okay to walk through at first. When I had the opportunity to work alongside wonderful people, it seemed even then that things fell apart for no reason and those doors closed, too. I won’t lie. For a good month, I stopped applying. I didn’t have it in me anymore. Feelings of inadequacy and the build-up of lies came flooding in. “You’re not good enough. No one wants to hire you. No one wants you.”
Throughout this process, I’ve reconnected with past supervisors, mentors and coworkers only to be told, “If I had a position for you, I’d hire you right away!”
I wonder. See, the confidence I’ve built up over the years was not false. I was never the one to tell myself that I was doing a great job. It was these people. It was those around me. It was the people I love and whose opinions I trust.
So here I am now. I still know what I want to do. It’s still for Abba. So the question remains: Why isn’t Abba opening doors for me?
I recently learned that my Pastor has been secretly trying to find a way to employ me to no avail. The other day, he was asking me how job hunting has been. After awhile, he looked at me and said, “Gloria, sometimes God closes doors so that one day we can walk through the right door.” I’ve heard this a thousand times. I’ve uttered these words to myself a thousand times. But he quickly continued with a story that comes from Acts 16:6-15. “For a woman and her household, the Spirit of God closed doors and redirected the steps of Paul and his companions to Macedonia.”
God closed doors again and again for Paul and his friends, who just wanted to share the love of God. Why would God close doors if they were doing His work? As I was reading over the text, I realized that even though Paul wasn’t able to spread the gospel in those areas, God would open doors for other people to do His work there. It wasn’t that Paul was incapable of doing the work. That work was just not meant for him. Where one door closes for one person, it opens for another. There is purpose in all of it.
Then, I realized the significance and beauty of the story. God orchestrated the closing of doors so that Paul and his friends would come to Macedonia and save not only a woman whose “heart was opened to respond to Paul’s message,” but also her entire family. God opened a door for them through this woman, whose life was forever changed that day.
My Pastor reminded me, “So when God says ‘no,’ know that you can trust Him.”
I’m still in the same place, sitting behind my computer screen, applying for jobs and skimming through rejection letters. Nothing has changed in the natural world. Nevertheless, my spirit has grasped onto the truth and hope again that Abba is moving, even in the closing of doors I’ve witnessed these past seven months. I know that my heart is for Him, and I know that He’ll open doors for me when the time is right. Abba is taking care of me and He’ll make a way.
