During our conversation I asked her to pray for my very impossible situation; I confessed to her that I don't know what's going to happen this summer.
At work, we're down to 10 hours per week, and, as it is, I can't pay my bills on what I'm making full time! It doesn't help that my mortgage went up yet again, that everything else is going up, and of course, the large car bill from January isn't going to be anywhere close to being paid off any time soon.
And, the great irony; here God gives me a job that basically gives me 6 weeks of the summer "off", which, I was hoping, would allow me to visit a community or two. The reality is, though, that I have to find another job that will give me at least 30 hours per week (assuming the same or similar pay scale), or, quite literally I'll be declaring bankruptcy.
I know without a doubt that God lead me to my current position and wants me there, and I've found something interesting about working in a parish; I've gotten attached. The people that I've met there are amazing and I can't IMAGINE not knowing them. If I leave this job, I'll feel like I'm leaving them. And given that I live so far away from my work, I likely wouldn't often go there after leaving the position.
So it's a dilemma. I am keeping my eyes open for another full-time job, as guilty as it makes me feel, because the reality is that I can't live on what I'm making and I certainly can't pay down any debt in this way...if anything, debt is getting higher, steadily higher. And even temp jobs can be challenging; long term temp jobs may actually not work out espcially considering I'll have well-defined end and start days at my current job, as well as the 10 hour per week obligation. And at the other extreme, temp jobs can be very brief with long hiatuses in between...so...not real lucrative.
As I was explaining these things to my friend, she pointed out the Solemnity today, Mary's reaction when told she would bear the messiah. How could this be? It's impossible!
But NOTHING is impossible for God. Sometimes he brings us to impossibility so that His glory can be revealed.
It may very well be that God wills financial disaster for me, because it might bring about a greater good. It may very well be that He has another plan which will go into effect at the very last moment.
In fact, that's what happened when I got the call to interview for my current position; I was at the end of my rope, I was about to pick up the phone and call my mortgage company and say I couldn't make my next payment, in hopes of some kind of options. Instead, I was called, and subsequently hired. Just at the last moment.
So for now, all I can do is hope, and pray, knowing that if I am truly called to religious life, somehow God will send me on my visit where and when HE deems, and He will likewise show me how to deal with all my financial obligations at the same time.
When I look at my life, I see nothing but a mountain of impossibility, completely insurmountable. The only thing that keeps me from outright panic is, quite honestly, just not thinking about it. As the bills come, I pay them if I can. If I can't pay them, I figure out what can wait and what can't. And so far, I'm above water. For now.
And really...that's better than what a lot of people can say right now.
Most of all, right now, though, I'm grateful to my dear friend for reminding me that our God is a God of impossibilities, and if He can be born of a virgin then my current problems are nothing but chaff on a breezy day.
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