Purse Wisdom

Categories: spiritual-journey

Date: 01 July 2010 09:03:05

I know I'm going through the same thing as a number of my readers or their families at the moment, job hunting. I took a risk a while ago and am now seeing the potential consequences, although everybody assures me that it will work out ok. Yesterday I have to say I probably took my biggest knock back yet in the whole job hunting thing. There was a job I desperately wanted that I got interviewed for but didn't get. In the mist of my misery I happened to open my purse and the first thing I saw was the front of my Methodist membership card for the year, which I keep in there for times such as this. It says, " in everything give thanks". This was useful because it helped drag me out of my pit slightly.

I then got on to reflecting on the covenant prayer which is a central part of Methodism and is prayed at a special service once a year. Part of that says, "let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you". Now let me get this straight I want to be employed rather than laid aside, I am scared by being unemployed, skint and potentially homeless in September. I want to get a job and work, I want to be able to provide for my daughter. Yet, I prayed this prayer at the beginning of the year and meant it. My own personal interpretation of the covenant prayer is that it is talking in couplets about the extremes of life and the highs and lows and is simply saying we want to acknowledge God in whatever happens in our lives.

This is difficult in disappointment though. The only conclusion I can reach at the moment is that Depeche Mode were right, God does have a sick sense of humour. Yet, in the mist of that I am, as my purse told me, called to give thanks to that God in all things.

Today I thank him that I do have a roof over my head. I thank him that the job I didn't get exists at all and that there are more of us willing to do it than were able. I thank him that even in the mist of a turbulent and scary life at the moment I have family, friends and a church to support me. I thank him for the Durham experience. I thank him that he is not a remote God in all this, he is a God who knows what it is to choose the difficult path and face fear and uncertainty.