I wanted to share this testimony on Sunday at church but I
wanted to go through my journal entries because the Lord was impressing on my
heart to “forget not all his benefits” and to really dig deep and thank him for
each individual answer to prayer.
I did read all my journal entries and am now astounded at what an
amazing God I serve who knows every detail of my life and wants to give me my
heart’s desires.
I have an incredible testimony of God’s goodness in
providing the perfect 2 jobs for me.
I quit my job in October in faith.
In November I interviewed to teach at Christian Youth Theater. I didn’t get the job but, until then, I
hadn’t even thought about teaching.
Getting to teach on trial inspired me to pursue teaching. So I did a lot of research and found
that, based on my experience, my best but was to try and find a tiny,
grassroots performing arts school where I could get my feet wet and build a
resume. On google, not only did I
find something that fit the bill but it was 5 min from my apartment at the
time. I interviewed with them,
told them my ideal class and age group I wanted to teach, and it just happened
to be exactly what they were looking for.
God totally took care of timing too. I reached out to them in December—right before their spring
semester.
I needed more work to pay the bills. I started to dream about what kind of
job that might be. I actually
wanted administrative work.
Similar to my CYT experience, in April I interviewed for a job that
stoked the fire of desire in my heart for that kind of work. It seemed serendipitous to me. I had had this idea of working at
rehearsal studios in the city and called them putting my name out there. I week later I got a phone call from a
guy from one of them asking me to come into an interview the next day. They just happened to be needing a new
person when I called. I had my
reservations though after the interview: it didn’t pay enough and it would have
emotionally difficult to work there all the time during auditions that I
could’ve been at. But not only did
this interview (and second interview) serve to increase my desire, it also
increased my confidence in my myself.
Out of 150 applicants they told me it was down to me and one other
girl. Well, they picked the other
girl. But it was good because it
wasn’t God’s best for me and I would have settled for it if he hadn’t
redirected them to her.
The cool thing about this was that I finally had a direction
when it came to my job hunting and my prayers. I’m not going to lie, I think 9 times out of 10 my faith in
God and in myself wavered. But
it’s such an incredible story to look back and see him pressing me to press in
to him! I read over some of my
journal entries and was astounded at how accurate God’s answer to my prayers
were and how important I think it was that I prayed with faith and authority:
·
I prayed that week for a job “not babysitting”
making 400 a week.
·
God said, “Ask for what you want and what you
need. They don’t have to be
mutually exclusive.”
·
Increased my prayers to 500 a week
·
I actually read somewhere that my personality
type excels working in a nurturing environment so I started praying into that a
bit (even though I was embarrassed by it a little).
I was distraught because I interviewed with temp agencies
hoping to finally work behind a desk and no one wanted to hire me because a) I had no experience and b) I needed
a flexible schedule.
God provided every step of the way. I thought I couldn’t actually survive
past June jobless. But God
miraculously provided for me until he as ready for the doors for this job to be
flung open.
A few weeks ago a friend forwarded an email from her friend
who manages a family owned Taekwondo studio on the upper west side. He was looking for a full time receptionist. I spoke to him and over email and told
him that I was looking for something part time. He said he could work with that. The most hilarious thing to me is that I feel like I didn’t
nail the interview at all! I have
no experience with this kind of work so all I could think say of my strengths
was that I am “warm and friendly.”
Amazingly, shortly after our interview he hired me.
Let me say this job is beyond everything I even had faith to
pray for! God told me April 9th
“prepare to receive a 3 fold blessing.”
Well, my job is a threefold blessing!
I knew going into it that my priorities were acting,
teaching, and my JHOP community and this job was going to have to work around
that. The difficulty I expressed
was that my teaching job was going to increase hours and that it was also the
same afterschool schedule as this receptionist job. So, in our interview conversations, I sent my boss a sample
schedule of hours. It was tight
and slightly irregular. He floored
me when he said yes.
The other thing about this job is that God above and beyond
answered my prayer for a nurturing atmosphere. It really is a family.
Though I have tasks to do there’s a lot of down time where my job is
literally to sit and have conversations with parents and kids, which actually
makes me so happy! It’s not a
boring desk job at all but a job where all of my skills are used and I actually
have a say in what happens at the studio.
On top of that I feel like a have such an amazing relationship with my
boss. His grace makes me have
grace for myself. He encourages me
daily.
I mean, the financial blessing is obvious. I make the amount that I had asked God
for before I went in for the interview.
Therein I have a testimony within a testimony. I was going over my budget trying to figure out if I needed
to book extra babysitting jobs to get by going into September even with the
money I would be receiving from work.
I told the Lord and myself that I needed a certain amount of money. I was able to pick up more hours so
that that amount of money was sliced down to only $150. On Saturday my boss pulled me aside and
told me he had gone over my timesheet and that he had added 10 hours on just because
he loved all the hard work I had been doing. This, of course, amounts to $140. Crazy!
Addendum: I went into this actually terrified of
failing. I was told I got the job
on a trial basis. That made sense
to me. I had nothing to recommend me
to this job except my “warm” personality (something I don’t know that I am
always known for either!) But I
because it was a trial basis I was actually terrified of losing the job. Once I started working though I felt
empowered by the Holy Spirit, realizing who I am and all that I have to offer.
Fun fact: I realized that I had a prophetic word when I
first moved here that I would be a receptionist. Of course, at the time I interpreted it figuratively. How fun that it’s actually true!
