report on an unexpected and wondrous adventure

Oh boy, have I got a fun story for you today.  This is about an episode from my life – actually, a fairly recent one (its conclusion occurred just as the pandemic was breaking in early March.)  An amazing experience that kind of came sneaking up on me – one I wasn’t looking for or expecting at all.

Your story isn’t always only YOUR story – such was the case here – and so until everything was done and dusted, fully realized…it was not yet my story to tell.  Sometimes it’s even wise to ask another’s permission before telling what seems to be just your own story – this was one of those as well.  I asked and got a blessing.  Enough time has passed.  It’s finally time to tell a “how cool is God” story.

One day at work (earlier this year) I found out that the Executive Director of a really great local organization that helps people in need had decided to retire.  I’m familiar with these folks because at work, we partner with them to provide meals to seniors across our county…and also because years ago when I was a single mom, they helped me pay my power bill during harsh winters in a big house with drafty windows.  I had a phone conversation with the soon-to-depart Director, and then my boss and I talked about it when he came back from a meeting.  Just part of the information flow.

My office is right outside my boss’s office – we talk back and forth throughout our days.  Late that afternoon, as I was wrapping things up to go home, he tossed off a comment from the next room.  “Karen, you should consider applying for that job.”

I laughed.  “I’M NOT LOOKING FOR A JOB.”  What a goofball.  I shook my head as I worked.

He kept talking.  “No, I’m serious.  You should apply.  You’d be one of the top candidates, if you did so.”

“It happens that I LOVE MY JOB,” I retorted.  “I don’t really have any plans to go anywhere.”  Besides, this was DIRECTOR job.  I’m an ASSISTANT.  Obviously.  I just kept working to organize my desk before leaving.

“I’d support you in your application.  You could put me down for a reference.  You really should at least pray about applying.”

I plopped my papers down on my desk with a gasp and huffed into his office, gesticulating wildly.  “WHAT are you DOING?!” I demanded.  “It has been my plan that this is the last place I ever work.  WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

He was calm and steady, smiling as he enumerated for me the reasons why I’d be good at the job, the reasons why I’d love the job, the reasons why I’d be a strong contender.  He said that he would be derelict in his duty to me if he didn’t encourage me to do this thing, knowing how qualified I was to do it.

He stayed calm, meanwhile MY heart was pounding.  I was fighting to not hyperventilate.

The thing is, I love my job.  I OWN my job at this point – I shape it every day, and have been doing that so much over the years that we just rewrote my job description and title last fall to something quite different than where I had started.  I love my schedule, which I get to create.  I love my coworkers.  I love our residents.  I work for the best boss I’ve ever known or even seen anyone else have.

The thing is, I HATE being new at a job.  The learning curve is so long and so darn uncomfortable.  It’s so humbling.  It’s so unfamiliar.  My plan has been to never be new at a job again.  It has seemed like a great plan.

My boss had acknowledged aloud that if I were to leave, my absence would create a challenge.  I’ve customized my job so thoroughly at this point that it would be hard to find a person ready to step into it – I do pieces of this and bits of that, and the pieces and bits aren’t all that related to one another.  Thinking of leaving my coworkers in the lurch was a painful thought.

The thing is, though…I couldn’t just disregard his suggestion.  My boss has been a source of encouragement, growth, inspiration, and spiritual wisdom for going on ten years now.

He has invited/challenged me to do many things I haven”t felt like I could do…and it turned out I could do them…and do them well….and enjoy doing them.

When I was living in Chicago with a plan to never leave, it was my boss who asked me to pray about coming back to work for him…and even though I didn’t want to, I prayed, and then followed God’s lead to come back, and it has been the right thing for me.  A choice I haven’t regretted…one that has reaped great rewards.

When Gary and I hadn’t been married all that long, it was my boss who challenged me to pray about us becoming homeowners.  Can I just say…neither Gary nor I had any plan to EVER become homeowners.  We had lists of reasons not to do so.  I prayed about it ONLY with great reluctance and ONLY because my boss said the Lord prompted him to speak with me about it…and then Gary and I followed God’s lead and here we are, homeowners…and glad we made that decision.

I can’t just blow off a suggestion from my boss.  His counsel has shaped my life in too many ways that are way too good for that.

So I was a wreck when I went home that night.  I nearly cried in the car.  I nearly hyperventilated when I told Gary about the suggestion.  I hollered my boss’s name like some kind of swear word.  I yelled when I talked about it on the phone with my daughter.  I had a meeting at church that night…I stayed after to have my pastor pray for me, because the possibility seemed real that I wouldn’t be able to sleep for the rest of the week, with all the thoughts-and-feelings splooshing around in me.  She prayed that I would find peace, which sounded impossible.

But then I DID sleep…eventually.  And I woke up with clarity and peace:  all I had to do was apply and trust God.  The door would not open unless I was supposed to walk through it.  It was crazy, how fast that peace landed…the space of one night’s sleep!  Unheard of, where it comes to me and big-deal stuff.

My boss was casual when he got into the office the next morning.  “Did you send over your resume yet?” he asked as he put his coat away.  When I said that I hadn’t, but had decided to give it a try, he was enthusiastic.

Over the days that followed, he was the kind of mentor/coach people could only dream of having.  I did my research on the organization and he sat with me, helping me comb through information and fine-tune my questions and observations.  When the call came to schedule my interview, he told me to go buy a suit appropriate for the job I was trying to get (I promise you I wouldn’t have been able to give myself permission to spend that kind of money without that counsel).  The night before the interview, he even coached me through what to eat for breakfast for peak performance.

In the end, while I did get to interview, someone else got the job.  The joyous part of the wait between the interview and the job was the freedom I felt in it – there was no possible bad outcome.  If I didn’t get it, I got to stay at the best job I’ve ever had and keep all the great things that come with that.  If I got it, I got to move into an incredible new opportunity to lead a team doing stuff that lights a fire in my belly…complete with a six-figure salary.

The person who got the job….oh GOOD GOLLY, people,.  It is someone I admire beyond all description.  It is someone I count as a local hero…someone who will make his mark on the world in a way that history will celebrate one day.  Someone who, when he speaks, I just want the whole room to HUSH so I can soak in his every word.  When I heard who got the job, I literally broke out into spontaneous applause.  Though I had written the interview committee a thank-you note after meeting with them, hearing who who they managed to hire made me want to go find them and give high-fives all around.

So…no bad feeling there!  🙂

So what was the point of that whole adventure?  There may well be more to learn along the way, but what I know now is this:  it was life-changing for me.  While my boss has always been deliberate in giving me frequent praise in front of many witnesses, and while he has honored me in what he has entrusted me to accomplish on the job, finding out that he found me qualified to step into that position…WOW.  He believes I could run an organization with a $12 million budget and way over 100 employees.  He believes I could do the community building work, and manage all the interacting-with-government-agencies stuff.  He believes I could hold my own with a board.  And HE DOES THESE THINGS at his own job, so he’s not just some silly person who thinks I could do it because they don’t understand what would be asked of me.

That’s life-changing.  That’s a confidence boost at a whole other level.  My role on the leadership team at work is fun and fulfilling, but at least part of me has always measured myself as “the littlest one in the room,” where it comes to that team.  The only non-director.  No person has communicated that dimunition to me – it’s just a voice that has always been in my head.  This experience has BANISHED that voice and its estimation and has put away any noise inside of me that used to say I should sit down and be quiet because I have less to offer than the others.

And here’s the thing:  it happened just in the nick of time.  I had my interview, and then the pandemic hit before I could even find out if I was hired.  At work we went from business as usual to a whole new world in what felt like the blink of an eye.  There were weeks of 13 hour workdays, often followed by crying in the shower and sleepless nights.  (One of those days included coming home to open the piece of mail that let me know I hadn’t gotten the job, and honestly, I was relieved at that point as I couldn’t imagine taking on directorship of ANYTHING with the coronavirus here to impact every single decision for God only knows how long to come.)

What I knew instantly as the pandemic began to unfold was that my boss’s challenge to me to apply for that job and the whole process that followed…they were EXACTLY what I needed to give me the confidence to navigate this crisis.  Filled with new confidence in my ability and feeling the 100% backup of my boss having my back, I was able to move into roles and duties that I’m not sure I would’ve handled well otherwise.

My boss is amazing, and God is good, and  I LOVE THE ADVENTURE that is walking with the Lord, who always knows how to set me up just right for the next thing awaiting me on the road.

It’s a story too good not to tell.  We should do that when God works in mysterious and beautiful ways – we should TELL.  Often, loudly, in detail, without shame.  We should tell.

May my story awaken you to see where God is working in and around YOUR world, as well.