Bloom Where You're Planted

Last week, I shared how I found my calling in life with the crowd that frequents God-Incidences and God Bumps at Jennifer's blog.

Today, I am going to share how I remained a church secretary.

The first five years of being a church secretary was the greatest! I mean seriously, I had to make myself go home at the end of the day because there was so much to do and I wanted to be a part of all of it.  The creativity that flowed in that office was just phenomenal. We had some staff that really thought outside the box and every day was just an adventure.

But since I worked with humans, there finally came a time when some problems surfaced.  Deep problems.  You see, our church had put our pastor up on a pedestal.  There is but one place to go after that ...

Three years later, things were a mess! And the sad fact was this:  the church could no longer afford to pay me a full-time wage.  Since my husband was on disability, I knew this meant I must look for a different job.

For eight years now, I had make the church my second home.  I didn't know how I could function anywhere else!

Because of the hurt I had experienced, I decided that I needed to find a job that had benefits.  After all, I had my family to support.  I needed insurance, retirement, sick days; why, it would sure be nice to get a bonus every once in awhile!  I applied everywhere I could think of to apply, starting with all the area hospitals and schools.  I put in application upon application up to a 50 mile radius of where I lived. Believe me, I had never worked so hard to find a job.

All of that activity and no results!  I mean, I only got one interview, at a place that was pretty obvious I wouldn't fit in.  The boss was looking for someone who would be a real team member (read:  lackey who would work as many hours as asked without complaining.)  I had three young daughters and a disabled husband.  I couldn't work 60 hours a week!

Finally, I asked God what He wanted me to do.  Funny, I didn't think of asking that first!

The very evening that I asked God's help, I looked in this little newspaper the county north of us distributed for free.  There I saw an ad for a church secretary.  Those kind of ads are rare. Usually churches just put the word out, and someone that a church member knows usually gets the job.  I didn't think I knew anyone in that county.  Since I was desperate, the very next day, I mailed them my resume. Mail delivery is slow in the city that I worked in, so I mailed it from a little town I passed through on my way to work. 

The next day, the Pastor called me for an interview.  Turns out that someone in that church did know me - their daughter and son-in-law were former members of the church where I was currently employed.  They gave a glowing recommendation and I was hired on the spot.

Pastor told me that the day I saw the help wanted ad was the very last day the ad was going to run.  They had run the ad for 3 weeks and not one person applied.  The pastor had decided he would try something else and pulled the ad, but NOT before I saw it! It was definitely all in God's timing.

Since then, I have learned a lot of things.  I have learned that if you have received a clear call to do something, you don't move until God tells you to move.  I had felt a definite call to be a church secretary.  God had not called me to be anything else, so that is where I needed to stay. I needed to bloom where I was planted; in other words, make the best of my situation stay where I am and be all I can be. Just because it was time to leave my first church didn't mean it was time to leave my ministry altogether.

If you would like to share how God has worked in your life, link up at Jennifer's blog, Getting Down With Jesus.