No need to pee my pants.

            I have now been rejected, passively or through a delicately worded email, 30 times.  And counting.  Once I received a cute little “thank you for your interest, however we’d rather suck eggs than hire you…” post card.  Why is it that the level of cringe caused by the rejection noticed is proportionate to its level of politeness? 

            Yes, yes, I know.  It’s tough out there.  Everyone’s looking.  The realm of the unemployed is a jungle filled with leaping mutant vampire wombats that drool.  But that never really scared me before for two reasons; one stupid reason and one good reason.

            The stupid reason was, well, this is me we’re talking about here.  Sure there are a ton of people out there looking for jobs with more experience, more education, more ambition and tighter abs, but still, like I mentioned, I’m me.  My bosses have always loved me, my friends and family think I’m great, and I’m generally unfamiliar to rejection (excepting 30 recent events).  I’m Katie Taylor—I’m on the list. 

            My inner conviction that I’m worth my salt (and probably my weight in gold) has to be a result of my parents’ daily bias of my greatness expressing itself throughout my childhood.  Exaggerated as it may be, it’s really helped me keep my chin up.  Even though jobs I would have loved and been highly qualified for have denied me with passionate consistency for over two months now, I still have the gall to think that the next job I apply for really could be the one.  I’m just not that big on despair, I guess.  I’m like that five-year-old who’s just learned to play tic-tac-toe and keeps thinking that they’re going to beat you if you’ll just play with them once more even though they mark the same squares every time.  That’s it!  My parents probably let me beat them at tic-tac-toe leaving me with an unrealistic sense of optimism.  Now I’m stuck believing in myself for the rest of my life—thanks a lot, Mom. 

            Anyway, the second reason is because of God.  I did not really plan or even want this to be a blog that gets into my Christian life that much (you know, to keep it accessible to the untold zillions of people reading it), but I’ve found I can’t really avoid talking about God if I’m going to talk about anything remotely serious in my life.  I’ve discovered it’s best to just trust God from the get-go so you don’t end up feeling stupid later.  That way when God provides just like he says he’s going to, when things don’t crash and burn like my terrible fantasies would predict, when I see how his plan fits together after I’m already through the dark spot, I don’t have to go back to God sheepishly and say, “Oh, I see you were serious about that whole ‘do not worry’ bit in Matthew six… sorry I for that embarrassing freak-out session…”  I’ve had enough of those experiences.  Since God has always taken good care of me in the past despite the freak-outs (though not always in the ways I’ve recommended to him), I’ve just decided to forget it and trust him and not make a liar out of myself if I want to sing “Great is thy Faithfulness” with the rest of the crowd on Sunday.  I guess he could change his mind this one time and I could completely crash and burn, but I’ve never really heard of or experienced that and I’ve never come across a “sometimes I just like to screw around with you for fun,” scripture.

            So on a practical level, just this morning I found out that I’ll have two interviews this week.  One for a temporary job that would be pretty cool and look great on my resume, and one for a job that would probably be amazing—working for my one of my favorite humanitarian nonprofits.  Even the fact that I have two interviews tempts me with stress… what if I get offered the job I want less and have to decide whether or not to take it before I know about the job I want more?  What if I screw it up?  But I’m not going there.  No—I am now accountable to you, World Wide Web and friendly blog-readers.  There is no reason I need to worry—not if I actually believe what God says.  And I do. 

            When it comes to people who don’t believe in God and his power and presence in our lives, I don’t know how you do it.  My hat is off to you, because if I were you I’d be peeing in my pants.   

           

            Thanks all!  I’ll let you know how this week goes…