Frozen in Time

I awoke to the familiar tones of Rush playing from my cell phone.  The song "Digital Man", from their album 'Signals', has a snappy opening worthy of using for a morning alarm.

"Not this again", I thought to myself.  It was another Monday morning, and I wasn't ready to deal (read: avoid) with the mess I have created over the past few months.

Today's date is October 12th, and it's Columbus Day - the day that used to be a national holiday to honor the discovery of North America by Christopher Columbus.  

Nowadays, anyone (aka "Attention Whores") who desires attention will look for something to be offended by; and with Columbus Day, today's "offended" are those who believe the holiday is insensitive to Native Americans.  I must have missed the part of the history lesson where Columbus himself was personally responsible for the actions of settlers that would come to America hundreds of years later.  People need to get over themselves and let go of the past!  Be grateful for what you have today, for the past is just that, and there's nothing you can do about past events but learn from them and move forward.

Which brings me back to my daily ordeal:  my "Work Box", which has been "Frozen in Time" for the last two months, just filling up to the rim with work to do.

I sit at my make shift desk in my room, a room that is at one end of my mother's home.  I decided back in early June that I was not going to renew my lease with the apartment home complex I resided in - I was going to move back to Jacksonville and leave North Carolina behind.  I gave my 60 day notice to the landlord, and then slowly calculated the number of days left at my job before I would have to leave them and move out of the state.

As you can see, my memories frequently flood my current train of thought - a gift from my ever present ADHD.

I've been back in Jacksonville for two full months now, and I'm job hunting...again.  And it's all my fault.

Having been here for two months, I have been giving about 20% to the job hunt.  That leaves very little room for success.

I have slowly started to figure out what is keeping me from succeeding, but it took a long time to get here.

Where does all this rambling lead to?  It leads me to the opportunity, the chance, to make this blog what it was SUPPOSED to be: a blog about redemption, survival, second chances, and the tools needed to correct the mistakes made in the past in my personal and professional life.

Welcome to the re-birth of "My Last Unemployment".

Netflix & Jesus

DECEMBER 2ND, EVENING

After what seemed like a long and productive day, I decided to unplug and unwind.

I have had a long running subscription to Netflix (the DVD by mail kind, not the streaming service) with close to 400 movies in my queue, and this week's movie was waiting to be watched.  As I opened my little red envelope and slid out the movie, the title sounded very familiar, and a bit ironic:  Heaven is For Real.

I had spent the last two weeks of work praying that God would allow me to stay at work, that God would allow me to find what I am good for, and now just 36 hours after getting the ax at a job that I was praying about, I have a movie to watch that is all about religion and the after life.  Touche.

Before I began the movie, I took a shower, brushed my teeth and made myself a nice cup of decaf coffee.  I wanted to be fully relaxed for the first time in over a day.  It worked.

I started the movie, and as the movie and its plot lines moved on, I found myself routing (yelling!) for the kid to talk it out with his father.  The mind of a young boy is full of vivid dreams, cartoons, chocolate, and the occasional dinosaur.  It's not the same as being in your mid 30's where you want to talk to everyone at the water cooler about the weird dream you had last night.  

So, the more that the pastor tormented himself over what little information his son had told him, the more I wanted to grab him by his shirt, smack him one time in the face and say "Go talk to your son and get him to tell you EVERYTHING HE SAW!"

Just before the end of the movie, I came upon a realization about my current situation and how it may relate to God.  I like to think that this is the first of many things that I will come to understand about the work of God.  I grabbed a piece of paper, and began to write down my thoughts.  This is the expanded version of what I wrote:

I had spent each day after work for the last two weeks praying to God to protect me at my job, to allow me to work at my job, and to allow me to find peace at my job.  God wants me to be happy, but He also knows that I have two strikes on my record with this company, and this company does not forgive employees for mistakes made in the past.  They will carry those two strikes for as long as I'm employed there.

I believe that by me losing my job, it was because God wants me to make a fresh start.  He wants me to move on, to find a new challenge and to start with a clean slate.  God knows that the longer I stay in this job, the longer those two strikes would continue to weigh down my thoughts.  He knows that I would not be able to be happy with that burden always over my shoulder looking in on me.

So, God loves me so much that He will provide me with a new start at a job that He will choose for me!  God knows what is best for me.  Thanks be to God for loving me!

I felt an overwhelming calmness come over me after writing my notes.  I was able to enjoy the rest of the movie, and I was able to go to bed at a much more respectable time. 

I knew that God has plans for me, now the next step would begin:  what should I be doing until God's plan for me is revealed?

With that question fresh in my mind, I woke up on Wednesday morning and started my morning routine all over again; right up until the part where you grab the keys and head out the door.  Then I stopped in my tracks, pulled a chair up to my keyboard, and started working on today's employment listings.

I sure hope God's plan hits my mailbox soon.

Up Next:  Grab Bag!