Ahem, your attention, please: Cue the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing the Hallelujah Chorus, or perhaps the hoofbeats of the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, because I have an announcement to make.
R has a new job! ( I'm having to restrain myself from excessive punctuation. Please imagine infinity plus exclamation points inserted here.)
In the less-than-bustling economic times in which we currently live, this is exciting news for anybody. But for us, exciting doesn't quite cover it. Please allow me to wax poetic with a bit of background.
R and I have an unusual story of meeting, courtship, and marriage. We met and dated long distance for the first 4 months of our relationship, with him residing two states away from me. Shortly after we met, he received a call for a job interview with a company that is located 45 minutes from where I live. He took the interview, got a job offer, and made the decision to quit his job and move 4 hours south to live and work close to me. If I haven't mentioned the fact that he is the most selfless man I've ever known, I guess here's a good place for it. I was overwhelmed that someone I had basically just met would do this for me.
At this job he was promised many things. Being young and naive, we both believed the myths of "compensation time" for hours over 40 per week, a set schedule of 8-5 Monday thru Friday, and the fact that our (unborn) first child's soul would not be demanded by this particular company.
Everything started off innocently enough, with the occasional late night or Saturday spent at the office. Since I was working for a hospital at the time, my hours were also unpredictable, and it wasn't a big deal. We were married 8 months into his new career, and I enjoyed seeing him come through the door of our miniscule apartment each day around 6 pm. Of course, this didn't last forever. Apparently, when our honeymoon period was over, so was the honeymoon with his employer.
R's hours began expanding, and he would often leave work past 8 and 9 pm. A forty-five minute drive home (and that's with no traffic) would put him home many nights past 10, with dinner cold on the table and me passed out in bed. This was obviously not ideal. Couple this with the stress of me changing jobs, and we were not happy campers most of the time. I especially felt frustrated, since I had changed positions in order to have a work schedule that aligned with what R's was supposed to be.
At least we still had the weekends, right? Those two precious days coveted by the Monday thru Friday folks everywhere became less frequent for R. Many weeks, he would return late on Friday night, be woken by a phone call from work at 2 AM on Saturday morning, and have to return to the office later that day, being too exhausted for anything except bed when he returned home. Our trips to visit his family in Indiana, which we used to take every couple of months, got cut short and eventually spaced out due to his work schedule. There were several months that I recall when R got no weekends--and virtually no days off. In fact, the month after we celebrated our first anniversary, R was required to work the entire month of August, rotating shifts from day to night, with no day off for about 5 weeks. As previously discussed, R's sleeping habits are not ideal to begin with, and this wreaked havoc on his poor overworked brain. He was not able to get decent rest, and as a result began to suffer migraines brought on by insomnia. As also previously discussed, I'm not the touchy-feely Florence Nightingale he thought he married, and after 5 weeks of my sleep being disrupted because his sleep was disrupted, I truly felt we couldn't survive this way for long.
The holidays also presented a problem each year with R's job. Leaving town before 6 pm was usually impossible, and so our Thanksgiving Eve's were spent logjammed on the interstate with the 728,000 other motorists stupid enough to leave the night before a major holiday. Commence with tears and gnashing of teeth on my part. We would spend Christmas here, leave the day after to go visit his folks, and return the day after New Year's, refreshed and ready to be up at 5 AM the next day for work, throroughly rested after a 9 hour trip with multitudes of traffic.
I don't want to sound like a whiner, though I've been lovingly labeled as such by those close to me for years. After all, he had a JOB, which was more than many folks could say. Above all, we were thankful for this. But this particular position was taking its toll. I felt like a single mother of 2 rambunctious Jack Russell terriers, one persnickety Calico and the rotund Ruler of the house, our Queen Bee tuxedo cat. I ate dinner alone every night, with the aforementioned cats and Fox News as my companions. By the time R was home, I was irritated, he was exhausted, and both of us were fed up. This continued for the next two and a half years.
Fast forward to Thanksgiving of 2010. R was currently involved in another month-long, swing-shift, no-days-off-for-you project. We had plans set to go visit R's family in Indiana, as is our yearly tradition. I got a call from R the day before we were supposed to leave. He sounded tired and defeated as he told me he had to work through the holiday, and we would be staying here for turkey day. It broke my heart for him. R is not a complainer, and he would never whine or moan about his circumstances (that's why he married me!). But I knew it was killing him. He stumbled home on Thanksgiving day around noon, fell straight asleep, and was back to work at 6 pm the same day, where he finished out two more weeks before a day off.
We had been praying for a new opportunity for R for at least 2 years. We knew that relocation would eventually be required of us at this position, which was an option neither of us wanted. R was also going to be switched to a pure swing shift schedule after the new year began: 4 days on, 4 days off, 4 nights on, 4 nights off, and so on. This would be ok for someone with normal REM sleep cycles, but I knew it would make him, quite literally, sick and tired.
For two years we have prayed for something different, for a job that would use R's talents without taking advantage of his dedication. We prayed for something that would give us a balanced life, where we can share a meal and have an hour or two together each day. We prayed daily for this, both together and separately. I took the Bibilical concept of "stand at the door and knock" to the extreme. I was basically taking a buzzsaw to the door in order to bust that mother down with how much I was praying. And yet, for many long months, we didn't receive a single phone call.
Thankfully, R took some vacation days after Christmas to take a trip to see his family. While relaxing at his parent's house, I was engaged in my new favorite activity: scouring online job boards and looking at the listings for anything that resembled what R does. At this point, I was willing to apply to Walmart on his behalf so at least I could see him while I did the grocery shopping. One of the sites happened to list a vacancy with a company in our area, in need of a person to fulfill a position similar to what R does now. As I was using R's laptop, I had his resume saved on my desktop. A few clicks later, and I kinda sorta applied to the job for him. I figured nothing would come of it, so what do we have to lose?
The next day, we were driving back home when R's cell phone rang. His phone didn't stop ringing for the next 3 hours. That day, we received calls from 4 different recruiters, representing jobs with companies in our area. I was shell-shocked. As soon as we arrived home, R was sending them updated resumes and arranging for phone interviews the following week.
Overwhelmed doesn't describe it. We had seen such a long dry spell that we became convinced we'd have to relocate or perhaps fake death and enter the Witness Protection Program to find a way out of R's current job. God used those 4 phone calls to pour some hope back into my parched heart. I was starting to feel that I was allowed to dream again--to petition God on behalf of my spouse, to ask Him for what we needed. And to end that prayer with a smile, firmly assured that He was listening.
Fast forward to 1/31/11. It's not just a regular Monday morning: its the day of interview number 3 with a local company, and one that R is excited about. It is also the day before he is scheduled to begin shift work. The first of February also happens to be my birthday, and I was bummed about not being able to see him until 10 o'clock that night. His interview is at 8 AM, so I call him at 10 to see how it went. No answer. 11:30, no answer. 1:00, no answer. I'm starting to wonder if water-boarding or the Spanish Inquisition is part of this company's interview tactics when R calls me. Apparently they have been swilling lobster and champagne from a fancy local restaurant since 11:30, at which point he left for lunch with the vice president and department head. I'm thinking this might be a mark in our favor. They told R he would hear a decision within the week.
The next day is as gloomy as they come, which I've come to expect from being born in the grayest month of the year. R sends me an email in his usual abbreviated cryptic style: "I just got a phone call."
Being the impatient one in our marriage, I call him every 30 seconds until he answers his desk phone. He confirms it was a call from the company that interviewed him yesterday, but they only left him a message asking for a call back. I try to go back to my work as if nothing is going on, but by this point I am completely useless with nervous energy.
I get in my car to leave, and as I am pulling onto the interstate, R sends me a text telling me that the new company has made an offer: increase in pay, more vacation time, weekends free except the occasional project, and no swing shifts. I want to take this opportunity to apologize if any of you were next to me on I-24 that day as I began my celebration. I managed to navigate home through tears, screams, and singing atop my lungs to pop songs on the radio.
I will never forget the look on his face as he came to meet me that night at dinner. He looked visibly lighter, unburdened and unfettered in a way I had ceased to recognize. My heart, in much the same way, felt as though it would fly away from sheer joy. It was the happiest day we have had since we've been married.
I know that this is not an unusual story, and that I shouldn't have been surprised by its ending. Sometimes when God allows a trial to be in our lives for an extended period, we forget what its like to live unburdened and unafraid. He offers this to us, regardless of circumstance, and its my fault when I choose not to take it, to stay mired down in the muck of my disappointment. God is King. The Psalms tell us that "He sits in the Heavens, and does what pleases Him." I owe Him my everything because He saved my life, but He owes me absolutely nothing. How often I forget that. Instead I expect Him to act as the Court Jester, to come singing and dancing for me when my spirits are low, to entertain me with pleasure so I can forget my pain. I am so glad that He loves me enough to make me uncomfortable.
I am also undeniably grateful that there are times when He answers my prayers with a resounding "YES". I don't deserve it: my salvation, His forgiveness, His grace, His mercy, my health, my family, my husband, or my husband's new job. I don't deserve the next breath I take, or the ability to type on this very keyboard. There is nothing that I can do to deserve the greatness that He is.
I suppose that's why we have the expression, "You can't put God in a box". It's because the gifts, blessings, and grace that flow naturally from His spirit are truly uncontainable. Thank you, Jesus, for your gifts, no matter what packagin they may have, for "every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." (James 1:17) Amen!
