The job situation remains unresolved, and I don't see it getting any better. I interviewed for a position where my boss and employer would be based back east, but I would be resident in Tucson and doing one of the things I love to do most: I'd be back into doing what I call "circuit card engineering". I got to do some of that on two occasions in my career, and the interviewer kept remarking about how he wish he'd known about me last January.
I don't know if I'm going to be hired or not. As a person of faith, I have repeatedly prayed that I would get this position. It would solve a multitude of problems, and would allow me to continue living in Tucson.
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I am not an expert in Christianity to the extent to where I would qualify for the lay ministry. What I have learned is that there are varying beliefs about some doctrinal matters. An example is whether or not there is a rapture, or how one is converted. Does one decide on his own, or has that decision been made by God?
What I do know is that if you are in the faith, you are not exempt from life's trials and tribulations. Christ Himself told us that. I don't have the location memorized, but there is a Bible verse where He said, "in this life you will have troubles". Folks, I've been having them for the past few months, going all the way back to last summer where the position in life that I was so grateful for started crumbling. I lost Lynette, lost two assignments at work, am in one now that I am just squeaking by on, and rumors of layoffs are simply too big to ignore. I look back and see that a blessed life has gotten away from me. If I get out a balance sheet of what has happened, I'd be in the red. Lynette, the wreck, the job.
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I remember listening to a sermon on shortwave radio back in 1980. I was trying to tune in some Pacific island, where Adventist World Radio had a shortwave station and I wanted to be able to claim that I had heard a new country. If memory is serving me correctly, it was their station in the Seychelles Islands. That meant being up at 2:00 AM, or maybe at 5:00 AM....I can't remember which. The hobbies I choose have a way of making me do things that no normal person would do, and there were several occasions when I got up early so that I could bag some station in Malaysia or Indonesia or some such similar location.
Anyway, AWR had this pastor preaching the need for repentance. Fine, I can agree with that teaching. But he said some other things. That if you came to Jesus, you would be healed of infirmities. Your life would be blessed. You wouldn't be sick, you'd be well off economically, and that God would reward you.
In those days, I had my belief in God, but I wasn't walking with the Lord. I was bound and determined to work out my problems on my own. So that's what I did. In 1980 no one was looking out for me except for me. I enjoyed that arrangement, but as the fall approached, there were cracks in that big giant wall of resolve that I had that were starting to form.
But to get back to what that preacher said, I didn't believe then, nor do I believe now, that coming to repentance is going to solve all of your financial problems or your medical problems. If that were the case, wouldn't people be going to church instead of standing in the welfare line or trying to make it on their own?
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My coming to repentance happened one evening in January 1981. I probably ought to tell that story sometime but now is not going to be the time. Suffice it say that my method wasn't working out for me. Sure, I was trying to better myself, and I was reaching for some mighty high dreams. I wanted badly to be an electrical engineer. I wanted that degree. The odds of getting it were not in my favor, but in that month there were some other things going on.
My search for the answers was not found in the Philosophy class that I took in the fall of 1980. I took that class to fulfill a requirement, but more importantly, I was looking for some answers and that class, I figured, was a way of killing two birds with one stone. I would fulfill a graduation requirement in some sort of other studies and I would get some answers.
I didn't get the answers I was looking for. What I got instead was a different answer. All of sudden, the definition of "justice" was no longer relevant. It didn't mean squat....at least not to me. I found something more important, and I realized that I needed to stop fighting God and to instead submit.
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Looking back, my friends Mark and Hal were also on some sort of quest. Mark wasn't public about his but I know that he was pursuing some answers due to some changes that he had made as far as his church attendance went. He made his changes one year later.
Hal was also looking for answers. I remember trying to convince him that I had found the answer. I told him that he needed to repent and to turn to God, to have faith in God.
Hal believed in God, although he had started out as an agnostic. He had come to reason that the Universe was constructed by a God, and that it was a God who had cared. This God displayed a great amount of handiwork in the construction of the Universe, and so it reasoned that God would have wanted to communicate with humanity somehow to let us know that He was there and that He cared for us.
A lot of people will believe in that. Ask the Freemasons. They will tell you that there is a God, and they refer to Him as "the Great Architect of the Universe".
Some other people will tell you there is a God. Ask any Muslim. Ask a practicing Jew. Ask any Mormon or any Jehovah's Witness.
They will tell you that there is a God.
The disagreements, I think, begin where we try to answer the question of how God reveals Himself to us, and just who exactly Jesus Christ is/was.
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I was not able to convince Hal that I had the answers. (I know, I seem to be writing a lot about Hal lately, but to be honest I don't tend to think of him until I start reminiscing about those times back in San Jose). Hal felt that he could make his decision after he died, about whether or not he was going to accept God's choice of going to heaven, or going to hell.
Within four months Hal died due to accidental causes. That was my first "trial" as a Christian. I had lost a good friend, but I would have taken that much much harder if I had not told Hal that I found the answer.
Hal rejected my answer, and if he had somehow came to accept it in his final weekend on earth, I have no way of knowing.
I am at peace with having made the effort to tell Hal what I had found.
I cringe when I think of how I would have felt if I hadn't.
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I have had other trials since then. There were some adverse conditions on the job front in the 1994 timeframe. I struggled with depression. No, not with the clinical kind or anything like that, but when you see 50% of the workforce laid off gradually over a five year period and you're still left, you're pretty demoralized.
It's hard going to work. You don't care anymore. And the quality of work suffers.
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OK, there's a trial going on right now.
I have interviewed for a job that I'm an obvious match for. There is no one who they ever interviewed for that job that is better qualified. They did hire someone in January, and that person is still coming to speed.
For me, there wouldn't be much of a learning curve. I would have to go back east to get trained on how to operate an automated test station. I've already been to that factory where that testing is going on. In that capacity, I was specifying what needed to be tested on four circuit cards that we were buying from them. I learned about the limitations of their test equipment, and I also learned how to write test requirements that were not as open to ambiguity as they otherwise would have been.
If I get this job, I jump over to their side of the fence, keep my residence in Tucson, and then work with the people here on this side of the fence to help smooth out things.
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I have not heard anything. I may not get the job. I may instead be walked out the door in a matter of days, and thus the nature of this blog post, a mentioning of the trial that's going on right now.
This would present me with the prospect of being unemployed for several months. The economy is down right now, and while we have turmoil in Japan and Libya our President is instead partying in Rio and more interested in college basketball picks than he is in providing leadership. What that pastor said on the radio back in 1980 is not going to come true, that if I come to repentance, that things will start working out. That's fine, I didn't believe him then, and I don't believe him now.
Repentance does not guarantee you an exemption of trials and hard times. It does not.
I do believe though that God will give you strength if you ask Him to.
I've been asking for plenty of strength lately.
I'm growing weary of having to ask for that strength.
I keep wanting to ask "why?"
I may never be wise enough to know the answer. I may not care about the answer once the good times return.
All I know is that when it rains, all of us will get wet regardless of what we believe. And when the sun shines, it shines for all of us.
Perhaps we're meant to find the joy in both rain and sunshine.
I don't think it's meant to be easy, but that's likely how we grow.
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Yes, it's coming right down on top of me. Just like in the song. It's not the first time it's come down on top of me, and I don't think it will be the last.
The song itself does not attempt to answer the question why. It instead is a statement of fact, and the singer pleads "won't someone set me free?"
It's not a depressing song, but I think that it is one that everyone gets to identify with at various times in life.
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I have stated on a previous occasion that this blog was not meant to be a dialog on my personal problems. I really don't like making entries of this nature.
But what this blog is, is a means for me to vent on those occasions where I need to vent, and I'm doing some of that right now.
If you are someone who prays, please remember me in your prayers.
And if you are not that type of person, I don't honestly know what to say. I guess all I can tell you is that I did not come to repentance to be blessed with a smooth life here on earth.
I guess instead, all I can tell you is that it is a source of strength for me.
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If you wish to listen to the song, click on the link below, where it says "LINK". You'll have to hit the back button if you want to come back to this blog.
LINK
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Don't forget to pet a dog or a cat. My cats, I think, have been good for my mental health.
