This week has flashed by very quickly and I've seen some of my plans for the summer change and some of them continue to remain the same. I cannot trust in the parts of the span of my life that are constant, and especially not the ones that fluctuate. But my oh my, I feel that now, the second I've opened my heart to being in Santa Barbara on my own terms, things have changed and I am, for once, okay with it.
I had planned on getting a job with Downtown Parking, and even got all dolled up for an interview this Wednesday, however, my supervisor-to-be somehow overlooked, up until I was sitting down in the office and my interview had started, my trip to Japan smack in the middle of July. I don't know how it passed his eyes, I even wrote big (for those of you who know me know that my handwriting is tiny!) for him so he wouldn't miss it at all. I was so sure I had this job in the bag, sadly, so was he. My interview lasted 45 seconds, 30 of those seconds consisted of him apologizing that he hadn't seen this earlier and I had come all the way down to the office for an interview.
I'm not upset with him, while I'm appalled he did not see that I had a trip planned, I can understand that having a new job that I would need to be trained in, and have to fill out paperwork for, would not leave me much time to actually work in the grande scheme of things. So I left the office with a smile, and headed home, wondering just how in the world I was going to be able to make some money this summer.
No more than 25 minutes later I was greeted by message from my favorite (and kind of only) boss who offered to rehire me at my old job. I was speechlessly dancing around in my empty house about it for at least five minutes. With things squared away, it appears I've got my old job back. Here's the catch - or what the catch was, it's not much of a catch any more - I was so set when I left San Francisco to expand my resume, and particularly steer clear of sales and retail jobs.
You can ask any sales person and they will tell you that depending on the environment you're in, your view of humanity becomes very bleak very quickly. Being surrounded by consumers who can see no further than two inches in front of their face and for the most part do not know what they want, can be daunting and frustrating, and lead salespeople to be terrible people. I know my thinking had to rework itself after I left my old job the first time, and I had to learn not to judge others all over again. Now that I'd thought I was getting so good at it, I've purposely placed myself back in a sales/retail environment.
But why? That was the question I asked myself an hour after accepting my boss's offer. On the surface, the first thing that I could think of was truly how grateful I was that she would offer to let me work over the summer. I honestly did not know what I was going to do when I was turned down by Downtown Parking, because if they turned me down, it wasn't likely that I would be able to get a job, be trained, do paperwork, and have anytime to work anywhere else either. So my first thought was certainly that it was a blessing, a privilege even, to be able to return to my old job.
On top of that, and after deeper thought I saw the connection to what I had read in the Bible that morning on the way to my interview. James 2 talks about being partial, and treating the man with a lot of money with more respect than the homeless man without clothes for himself. As someone having experience in sales/retail, I resonate with that. And I clearly remember thinking to myself, "This is why I'm going to get a job in the service industry and NOT in sales, so I can serve anyone and not have to judge or think about what is in it for me yaddah ye...." Now looking back on it, I see that as a Christian, I can trust God to be able to serve others impartially, that I can trust God to love everyone and serve everyone and treat everyone with equality and respect. I don't have to be in an environment where that is encouraged to do it. I know I can't do it on my own, and that is why I was afraid to return to my job. I was afraid of the tension between salesperson and customer, of things falling off the edge and escalating into failure, but I don't have to fear that anymore. I am not my job, I am not a salesperson. I'm a Christian.
If only I'd realized this and allowed God to love through me earlier...like when I had this job the first time. My conforming to the world around me warped my perception of Santa Barbara even further, and I was not able to enjoy my work experience near the end of it. Now that I've finally come to the city with an open mind, I can see how the things that I once loathed or feared to return to are being redeemed right before my eyes. San Francisco is still more my speed, but I won't die here in Santa Barbara for 8 weeks. I'll be more than okay. Learning this lesson in choosing a summer job has shown me that sometimes things don't have to go as we plan them, and when they don't we can believe that it is because something even better is in the works for us.
This week was a little bit lighter of work as far as raising funds to go to Japan with Campus Crusade for Christ and CRASH Japan. There weren't as many letters to send, not many forms left to fill out, it's a time where I just had to sit and wait for people to open the mail. I can say humbly that God is wowing me this week, and that He is bringing support from places I had never expected. I had many reservations and doubts sending out letters to some people, thinking that they wouldn't want to hear this from me or that they wouldn't remember me, however, God has proven me wrong in almost all these doubts, not just through the support that has returned, but also through unexpected meetings with these people and being able to hear their hearts for Japan.
The world feels like it is shrinking and growing all at the same time. I am starting to see how not alone I am in this effort to share the love of Christ with those in Japan, to learn from them, work alongside them as they rebuild their nation, I could cry. It's the deepest honor to be able to be going to Japan this summer, and I feel as though I don't deserve it at all. But when is life in Christ ever about getting what we deserve? Despite my failure to trust, my failure to love, my failures galore, God has brought me to a place in the span of 3 months, that I feel I was born for. I think that I learned Japanese in high school for this reason. I think I met my friend Ami who introduced me to Japanese music for this reason. I think that I met my friends from City Cru for this reason. All this to share the love of Christ, and I have come to know only the beginnings of the boundless love of Christ.
Another interesting thing happened this week, as my brother graduated from high school. I was nervous about going to the graduation, because another thing I had hated about Santa Barbara was how alienated I had felt by my high school being the only one who didn't go to college right after high school. But it was my brother's day, I wasn't about to let my anxiety keep me from going. The ceremony was lovely and all the kids have grown up so much. It had been a really long time since I'd seen them, and many of the faculty and staff, and I wasn't really sure what was going to happen. I got a lot of questions about where I was at, what I was doing, and once I realized that my answer was no longer, "I don't know" I felt as though my nervousness lifted just in time for me to talk about the great experiences I've had in my semester at SFSU. Since everyone wanted to know what the heck I was doing with my life, it was like a cycle of nervousness as they posed the question, and emerging from it with an answer.
I think back to the time I saw a baptism at Reality San Francisco where a girl applied to go to a university and they did not accept her, and how she would have been crushed, but she wasn't because school did not define her, Christ did. I feel like that right now. Without Jesus, I know I'd be so broken up writing something completely different filled with negative emotions and sadness, and a call for solitude. But thank God He watches over me and He is all I need, and is the constant that I can trust. He defines my life and is integral in it. While I was glad to finally say I was in college and enjoying every second of it, when it all comes down to it, being in college doesn't matter to me any more. That nervousness was the residue of my old self trying to attach back to me from the past. But I won't let it. I won't let my pride make me into an insecure person again.
In this whole week, life has become what it was before I left for San Francisco, but I am different. I had the expectations of coming back to Santa Barbara and changing the scenery for myself in order to accommodate my different identity, but God had better plans in the work. I have been plunged into the life that I threw behind me maybe with a kick and shout, some not nice name-calling, and a sigh of relief as I rushed to San Francisco. Everything from my job to my room, my house, the people I will see every day, it's all the same. But I am different. Being here does not define me, being in college or not does not capture what I am worth. Having a job in sales does not determine what is true about me. My identity is hidden in Christ now. And I am trusting that my life here in Santa Barbara has not changed so that God can prove to me just that.
I had planned on getting a job with Downtown Parking, and even got all dolled up for an interview this Wednesday, however, my supervisor-to-be somehow overlooked, up until I was sitting down in the office and my interview had started, my trip to Japan smack in the middle of July. I don't know how it passed his eyes, I even wrote big (for those of you who know me know that my handwriting is tiny!) for him so he wouldn't miss it at all. I was so sure I had this job in the bag, sadly, so was he. My interview lasted 45 seconds, 30 of those seconds consisted of him apologizing that he hadn't seen this earlier and I had come all the way down to the office for an interview.
I'm not upset with him, while I'm appalled he did not see that I had a trip planned, I can understand that having a new job that I would need to be trained in, and have to fill out paperwork for, would not leave me much time to actually work in the grande scheme of things. So I left the office with a smile, and headed home, wondering just how in the world I was going to be able to make some money this summer.
No more than 25 minutes later I was greeted by message from my favorite (and kind of only) boss who offered to rehire me at my old job. I was speechlessly dancing around in my empty house about it for at least five minutes. With things squared away, it appears I've got my old job back. Here's the catch - or what the catch was, it's not much of a catch any more - I was so set when I left San Francisco to expand my resume, and particularly steer clear of sales and retail jobs.
You can ask any sales person and they will tell you that depending on the environment you're in, your view of humanity becomes very bleak very quickly. Being surrounded by consumers who can see no further than two inches in front of their face and for the most part do not know what they want, can be daunting and frustrating, and lead salespeople to be terrible people. I know my thinking had to rework itself after I left my old job the first time, and I had to learn not to judge others all over again. Now that I'd thought I was getting so good at it, I've purposely placed myself back in a sales/retail environment.
But why? That was the question I asked myself an hour after accepting my boss's offer. On the surface, the first thing that I could think of was truly how grateful I was that she would offer to let me work over the summer. I honestly did not know what I was going to do when I was turned down by Downtown Parking, because if they turned me down, it wasn't likely that I would be able to get a job, be trained, do paperwork, and have anytime to work anywhere else either. So my first thought was certainly that it was a blessing, a privilege even, to be able to return to my old job.
On top of that, and after deeper thought I saw the connection to what I had read in the Bible that morning on the way to my interview. James 2 talks about being partial, and treating the man with a lot of money with more respect than the homeless man without clothes for himself. As someone having experience in sales/retail, I resonate with that. And I clearly remember thinking to myself, "This is why I'm going to get a job in the service industry and NOT in sales, so I can serve anyone and not have to judge or think about what is in it for me yaddah ye...." Now looking back on it, I see that as a Christian, I can trust God to be able to serve others impartially, that I can trust God to love everyone and serve everyone and treat everyone with equality and respect. I don't have to be in an environment where that is encouraged to do it. I know I can't do it on my own, and that is why I was afraid to return to my job. I was afraid of the tension between salesperson and customer, of things falling off the edge and escalating into failure, but I don't have to fear that anymore. I am not my job, I am not a salesperson. I'm a Christian.
If only I'd realized this and allowed God to love through me earlier...like when I had this job the first time. My conforming to the world around me warped my perception of Santa Barbara even further, and I was not able to enjoy my work experience near the end of it. Now that I've finally come to the city with an open mind, I can see how the things that I once loathed or feared to return to are being redeemed right before my eyes. San Francisco is still more my speed, but I won't die here in Santa Barbara for 8 weeks. I'll be more than okay. Learning this lesson in choosing a summer job has shown me that sometimes things don't have to go as we plan them, and when they don't we can believe that it is because something even better is in the works for us.
This week was a little bit lighter of work as far as raising funds to go to Japan with Campus Crusade for Christ and CRASH Japan. There weren't as many letters to send, not many forms left to fill out, it's a time where I just had to sit and wait for people to open the mail. I can say humbly that God is wowing me this week, and that He is bringing support from places I had never expected. I had many reservations and doubts sending out letters to some people, thinking that they wouldn't want to hear this from me or that they wouldn't remember me, however, God has proven me wrong in almost all these doubts, not just through the support that has returned, but also through unexpected meetings with these people and being able to hear their hearts for Japan.
The world feels like it is shrinking and growing all at the same time. I am starting to see how not alone I am in this effort to share the love of Christ with those in Japan, to learn from them, work alongside them as they rebuild their nation, I could cry. It's the deepest honor to be able to be going to Japan this summer, and I feel as though I don't deserve it at all. But when is life in Christ ever about getting what we deserve? Despite my failure to trust, my failure to love, my failures galore, God has brought me to a place in the span of 3 months, that I feel I was born for. I think that I learned Japanese in high school for this reason. I think I met my friend Ami who introduced me to Japanese music for this reason. I think that I met my friends from City Cru for this reason. All this to share the love of Christ, and I have come to know only the beginnings of the boundless love of Christ.
Another interesting thing happened this week, as my brother graduated from high school. I was nervous about going to the graduation, because another thing I had hated about Santa Barbara was how alienated I had felt by my high school being the only one who didn't go to college right after high school. But it was my brother's day, I wasn't about to let my anxiety keep me from going. The ceremony was lovely and all the kids have grown up so much. It had been a really long time since I'd seen them, and many of the faculty and staff, and I wasn't really sure what was going to happen. I got a lot of questions about where I was at, what I was doing, and once I realized that my answer was no longer, "I don't know" I felt as though my nervousness lifted just in time for me to talk about the great experiences I've had in my semester at SFSU. Since everyone wanted to know what the heck I was doing with my life, it was like a cycle of nervousness as they posed the question, and emerging from it with an answer.
I think back to the time I saw a baptism at Reality San Francisco where a girl applied to go to a university and they did not accept her, and how she would have been crushed, but she wasn't because school did not define her, Christ did. I feel like that right now. Without Jesus, I know I'd be so broken up writing something completely different filled with negative emotions and sadness, and a call for solitude. But thank God He watches over me and He is all I need, and is the constant that I can trust. He defines my life and is integral in it. While I was glad to finally say I was in college and enjoying every second of it, when it all comes down to it, being in college doesn't matter to me any more. That nervousness was the residue of my old self trying to attach back to me from the past. But I won't let it. I won't let my pride make me into an insecure person again.
In this whole week, life has become what it was before I left for San Francisco, but I am different. I had the expectations of coming back to Santa Barbara and changing the scenery for myself in order to accommodate my different identity, but God had better plans in the work. I have been plunged into the life that I threw behind me maybe with a kick and shout, some not nice name-calling, and a sigh of relief as I rushed to San Francisco. Everything from my job to my room, my house, the people I will see every day, it's all the same. But I am different. Being here does not define me, being in college or not does not capture what I am worth. Having a job in sales does not determine what is true about me. My identity is hidden in Christ now. And I am trusting that my life here in Santa Barbara has not changed so that God can prove to me just that.
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