I’m leaving my awesome job, and this is why

Yes. I have officially resigned from my amazing job with my amazing company. My last day is February 6. I’ve managed to tell some people, but it’s still going to come as a surprise to others.

So the big question is, Why?

When you’re young, it’s hard to look back over your life and see God working. He’s there. That’s undeniable. But you haven’t lived enough to be able to put the pieces together and see His hand working in your circumstances. You have to get a little older before you can do that.

Because He does. He’s involved in every aspect of our lives, and He can make something beautiful out of the moments you think are unredeemable. And even if you think every decision you make for Him is taking you in the exact opposite direction you want to go, one day you’ll wake up and find yourself teetering on the edge of your dreams. And you’ll have no idea how you got there. You were just following God, doing your best to keep in step with Him, and then you opened your eyes, and the desire of your heart is right in front of you.

Today’s verse is Psalm 138:8.

The Lord will work out his plans for my life—for your faithful love, O Lord, endures forever. Don’t abandon me, for you made me.

God has plans for us, you know. And He’s working them out one day at a time. I’m a planner, so I like to know what’s coming. But God doesn’t always let us in on that part of His plan. We just have to follow Him and live the way He’s told us. See, He’s been working in my life since I was a very little girl, preparing me for this moment since before I even knew what I wanted.

I wrote my first novel when I was 11 years old. I’ve been a writer since before I knew it was a possible career field. When I graduated from college and there were no writing jobs available, I didn’t know what I was going to do. So I did what I could and ended up in a library, where I honed my web managing skills.

Little did I know that was the very skill I needed to get my next job—the job I’ve been at since March 2010. I started out as a Web Content Specialist, but it was pretty obvious soon that my writing skills were far superior to my web knowledge. So the company created a position for me—Creative Writer. It had a lot of responsibility. A lot of pressure. I learned so much about marketing, about advertising, about copywriting and legal responsibility. And plumbing, of course. I learned more about plumbing than I ever thought I would want to know.

March 2015 would have been my five-year anniversary. I had planned to work at this position for ten years. Well, God had a different plan.

About a year go, He started poking me. Hard. Trust me, He’d say. And I did. I increased my giving. I volunteered more time. But He still kept telling me that I wasn’t trusting Him enough, that I wasn’t trusting Him with everything. I did everything I could think of that would cause me to put myself in His hands—everything except walk away from my job. And that’s what He was calling me to do.

Seriously? Walk away from the best job I’d ever had? Where I get to make a living as a writer? Scratch that. Where I make a good living as a writer? You may not realize this, but writing doesn’t really pay very well in normal circumstances. Walking away from a great job with good people and awesome benefits and retirement and Keurig machines—that’s just crazy!

Every argument I had, the answer was the same: Just trust me.

So maybe I’m crazy. But that’s what I’m doing.

I will work my last day at my current job on February 6, and from there, I’m going to write. I don’t know what I’m going to write at this point, but I know who I’m going to write for—my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And I’m going to trust that He will provide for me.

God has had a plan for me since before I existed, and He’s been working it out slowly. He’s given me the friends and the connections I have for this. He’s given me the education and the job experience I have for this. He’s given me the skills and the talent and the gifts for this. He’s been preparing me for this my entire life, and it’s time I stopped dragging my feet.

He wants me to trust Him? I will. With everything. My future, my dreams, my life. And we’ll see what happens.

Is God asking you to trust Him today? Maybe He’s not calling you to quit your job. Maybe He is. Whatever He’s asking you to do, do it. He’s worth trusting. My experience with God is that He never does things the way you expect. His way is always better.

For anybody wondering, even though I will no longer be “gainfully employed” after February 6, AlwaysPeachy will continue, Monday through Friday, for anyone who wants to read it. And if anyone is interested in having me come speak for their church or Bible study or knitting club, I’d be glad to do so. I work for coffee. 😉

Oh, fudge!

Almost every year, I get to make fudge with my mom and grandma. It’s a really fun time where we just get to make a big mess in the kitchen and lick pots and spoons, and usually we end up with a couple of batches of yummy Christmas candy. The trickiest part about making fudge is knowing how long to boil it. The actual ingredients aren’t complicated at all. But just like any recipe, no matter if it’s something simple or something really complex, you have to start with a recipe and follow it.

 

It’s silly to try to make something and not know what needs to go in it. Your results would be catastrophic, otherwise. Imagine trying to make bread without knowing that you needed flour. Or trying to make fudge without knowing that you needed sugar. You have to read the recipe first. You have to plan what you need ahead of time.

Fudge recipe – Wichita, KS

Today’s verse is Psalm 138:8.

The LORD will work out his plans for my life—
      for your faithful love, O LORD, endures forever.
      Don’t abandon me, for you made me.

 

God has a plan for everyone’s life. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from or even if you’ve given your life to Him yet. He still has a plan. And God is constantly in the process of working out His plans for us. He never stops.

 

And it’s interesting to me because I’ve had to abandon a few recipes when I didn’t follow the directions. I’ve been cooking and baking for a long time, and every now and then I get to thinking that I know what I’m doing. And I branch off on my own. And I try throwing my own ingredients into a recipe. And it turns out awful.

 

I’ve made runny fudge before. I’ve also made grainy fudge too. I’ve also made fudge that has chunks of chocolate chips in it that didn’t get melted all the way.

 

What I am glad to hear from this verse is that no matter how we “turn out” God will never abandon us. He’s given us the recipe (the Bible), and it’s up to us to follow it. But even when we decide to start throwing our own crazy ideas into it, even when the results are less than favorable (because the moment you start adding anything to the Bible, you are guaranteed to get off track), God will keep working on us until we turn out just the way He wants.

God will work out His plans for us; we just have to hang on

Today’s verse is Psalm 138:8.

⁸ The Lord will work out his plans for my life—
      for your faithful love, O Lord, endures forever.
      Don’t abandon me, for you made me.

It’s good to remember that God has plans for our lives. I forget that sometimes and feel like my life is a crazy, screwed up mess. It’s hard to remember that God has a plan when I can hardly get organized enough to keep a schedule together.

I love the Psalms. They just sound like my life. You start the day praising God and then something goes nuts and you end up depressed but then you remember that God is awesome and that He loves you and you end the day joyful again, remembering that God knows what He’s doing. The Psalms are a roller coaster of emotion. God’s always with me. God, why have you abandoned me? God, you make me strong. God, I feel so weak. God, you keep me safe. God, my enemies are attacking me and I am vulnerable. If everyone’s life wasn’t like that, you’d think David was bipolar or something.

But everyone has experienced what David went through. Everybody’s life has turned upside down at one point or another. Everyone has been abandoned and betrayed by friends. Everyone has sometimes wondered where God went (everyone has, so don’t act holy and say you’ve never felt that way). And I know we all wonder just what the heck God is doing. He makes no sense at all most of the time . . . but then I remember that if I could understand God, He wouldn’t be God.

If God revealed all His plans to me, I really believe my head would explode. He’s got a lot in store for me. I can tell you that because He’s given me a lot. He’s given me a wonderful family. He’s given me the best church in America and the most amazing Pastor in the world (who stopped in to see my grandma in the hospital yesterday in spite of having the busiest schedule known to man; I can’t say enough good about my pastor). He’s given me a job. He’s given me a brain that I use most of the time. He’s given me a lot of different skills and talents. And He’s placed me in a country that allows me (at least at this point) to speak my mind about the way I feel about things.

God has given me a lot. So I know that He’s going to ask me for a lot. I grew up with the verse, Luke 12:48. “When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required.”

God has plans for my life. And He’s got plans for your life too, even though it may not feel like it now. What I struggle with the most is feeling like nothing is happening, feeling like all I’m doing is waiting, like the only thing I accomplish in a day is converting oxygen into CO2. But here’s where today’s verse comes in: Do we actually think we’re the ones who accomplish anything?

Today’s verse says God will work out his plans for my life. Not Amy will work them out. God will.

So when it comes right down to it, all I have to do is wait and listen and be ready to move. When God tells me to do something, I need to do it no matter how crazy it might sound because when He asks me to do something it’s going to be a part of His plan for my life. And when I’m moving in tandem with God’s plan, that’s when He can start to accomplish HUGE things that I would never have been able to do on my own.

All I have to do is take it a day at a time. So what is my job today? I’m going to work at my corporate American job. And even if everything falls apart (I’m actually expecting it to because I’ve got a Spanish web site that’s supposed to go live today and I don’t think it’s going to happen), my job is to stay focused on God and living the way He’s called me to live.  And if He opens the door to tell other people about Him, I will walk through it. And if He allows me to help people today, I will. And if I make it home tonight without having accomplishing any of my goals for the day, it will be all right. Becuase in the end, it’s God’s goal that’s the most important and it’s God’s plan that’s going to help people the most. I’m just along for the ride. . . . and, man, what a crazy ride it is!