Woah...

Woah...

I just have to take the moment and say how radical life changes can be. How they seem to surprise us, jump out from behind the bushes...catch us off guard from time to time.

I recently received a job promotion, at a company I've only worked at for 8 months. And I was flattered and stunned and happy, but this was not my woah...for you see there is also the intrepediation of doing good, the unknown of what will come and what I'll be doing, and also the good-byes to the teams I've worked with for 8 months...the ones I've just begun to settle into...

The raise they offered was also stunning...it is my first real raise instead of the five cents here, the quarter if you were really good that has been all I've known thus far. I can't really wrap my head around this one either. So this is not my woah....I am humbled and grateful, and yet, still I cannot fathom anything more than the day to day survival that has been my current path since...ok well since I realized growing up meant having to pay for things too...lots, and lots of things...and yes, Mom, money does NOT grow on trees, I'm sorry I rolled my eyes at you.

No, the Woah happens when I looked back at last year in comparison to this moment. But it wasn't like I had a grand plan, to review my life, the course. No, when the thought first came into my head it was admidst something simple. I was really in the middle of a conversation with one of my best friend's a few hours after I found all this out. I was in the middle of a sentence, trying to really let it seep into my head...

a promotion
this economy
a promotion
for me
a promotion
because...
I earned it
how
eight months
I still don't really understand it all
many worthy people
a promotion
my promotion
two weeks
new stuff to do
two weeks
new boss
because there's a promotion
and I was chosen..
.....

and so on...as you can see my thought process wasn't high or lofty, it was staggering and choppy. And I was moderately successful at turning this choppy looping pattern into non-repetitive sentences and discoursing with my friend. So, there I was, mid-sentence, mid-thought when I was jolted by this juxtaposition.

Last year, on this exact day:
I was surviving on credit cards
I had topped out at yet another company that treated people horribly
where outside of work you might have thought your boss was a nice person
...until you had to work for them
you had to FORCE yourself to clock it
to endure the 9 hours, and somehow even the 1 hour lunch didn't count as being off...
I was working retail, so I had no set schedule, no weekends, no holidays
I was searching for a job, but prospects were rare and remote
I was completely hands tied, barely getting by
I'd finally had to admit to myself that I was sick, really sick like as in I can no longer deny it I have to find a doctor sick....
to find out I had an eye virus that may make me blind...come back in a month after you swallow some cough syrup...we'll know more then...
struggling with my circumstances...
not to mention a host of other complications and heart aches that were happening...

My mind reeled...tail spin, head rush...WOAH...

And here I am today...in such a drastically different place my logical mind insists that more time should have passed...incredibly it can't be just a year...and yet there's one thing I wanted to share with everyone, one emotion that supercedes the Woah...and all the rest....

I am incredibly happy to DECLARE that how I got from there to here, well, it wasn't a magic formula, it wasn't some philosophy that could align to a self-help book for the masses that fades faster than the latest diet fad...it is not something I can take credit for. Yes, you read that right...I cannot take credit.

I recognize my part in the pieces, the segmented journey that can be plotted on a time line, with the line stemming down to list a place on the overall map. I recognize I did work hard when I got to the new job, so I am not trying to dimminish that. But really, the whole, the grandness of it...not, me.

God.

He alone wrought the changes in such a fashion, orchestrated the symphonic whole that can lead you like a beautiful melody from there to here. If I close my eyes and concentrate on the sound, I can hear it whisper back to me on the wind, tieing the fragments together and playing a part in the grander theme. I hear the down beat of grace, I hear the lilting playfulness of this chord, and differentiate the instruments that played in sync to reverberate as one. Woah.

I know I have many friends who are struggling with their circumstances, with a job loss, with a disappointed dream, broken moments...to you I would sit down, look into your eyes, give you a hug, and gently speak to you. Oh, I know, I have been there. I remember, the hardship, the despair, the shortness of breath as cynical reality fought to overpower any idea of hope...or freedom...and that I'm sorry you are there. Then I would pause...for however long the moment demanded and gently speak again with the quiet confidence and assurance to remind you that you have an awesome God, so powerful, so BIG...and He knows too...not just knows where you are now, but He knows where you'll be later...and He knows how to get from there to here, and from here to there. He will not loose you along the way, trust in Him to get you there, trust in Him for the journey, keep up the faith. Keep the faith that life and this moment aren't so much about what you can make happen, what you can contrive, what you are capable of...life is often finding yourself in the dance, whether there is rain or bright crystalline sunshine and realizing the partner you are paired with is God, and that all He asks is for you to trust in Him and respond to Him. Let Him lead. Find the joy in the journey. And when the music stops, and you find yourself there, here, and there's that head rush, that woah...smile and give thanks for the dance and then prepare to dance again. The next song is about to play...

Thank you God, thank you for the dance~