When it should be a praise report!

The negative things I tell myself simply have to stop. Like, ‘you’ll never get a day job- even when you promote they will find some reason to put you on nights.’ It had been about eight years the last time of being on nights or evenings. I had a  round of interviews where I didn’t even tell a small group to pray. I’ve noticed that I’ve pared down each time. I used to post about it, tell every home group or bible study to pray. Then it was just like one group I would tell. Then, well, when the precious leader asked for prayer requests I just spit out: ‘travel mercies’ and left it at that.

Here’s the thing though with not asking- then, when it happens, you want to say: I have a praise report but it sticks on your tongue cause you remember you weren’t brave enough to ask. Now, I happen to know there are people praying for me regular and some even in ways I’d rather they not (like seriously- I don’t want to promote again, so just stop!) so it is quite possible people were still praying I would get days. This thought rattled around for days afterwards as well.


Usually when I don’t get the day job I tell myself this pack of lies like: ‘oh well, you hate driving in traffic..’ or ‘you don’t actually like the people who work on days anyway’ and while part of those things are true, to sleep in my bed at actual nighttime would be glorious. 


Anyway, I finally did get a day job. Not just any day job, but one past the management level I had been at for almost four years and a level above to the executive staff. 

And now I have to learn how to sleep at night. Wait, scratch that, I get to sleep at night. And drive in traffic.  All the day things that normal people do. 


You would think I would learn to just ask and not hold it back and when the circle gets around to me I just whisper ‘travel mercies.’ But. I didn’t. The next time I wanted something that it seemed impossible to have, it just didn’t even occur to me to ask God for it. It was a memorial trip for people that had died in the past year, yes most of them from Covid sadly, and the organization I work for has never lost so many people in one year before. I think 2020-2021 had a lot of these dark firsts for people everywhere. 


At any rate the day position I had ended up in was not one I got to stay in for more than six months, but this was due to my promoting (and thankfully, no, they did not create a night position for me - I remained on days.) As it happened I ended up in charge of two of the employees that had died. Now, because we had so many people going on the trip the list of who was going was who was working with them when the death happened. I knew this, and expected it, but I still wanted to go. I had befriended the two widows I had in my sphere and also wanted to be with my employees as they went on this trip of healing and remembrance. I never asked. Never even thought about it. 


Then, one of my employees had to back out at the last minute. She also was a she and had been partnered up with another girl from another work group. The leader of the trip had said, well, yes someone can replace but I can’t put a man and a woman in the same hotel room (for obvious reasons of course,) so the replacement person has to be a female.

 

Now, I’m not proud of this. I did have one more female who was even a new hire. But. This person wasn’t on the workgroup at the time of death, and while I wasn’t either, I also knew both the employees and just really wanted to go. So I raised my hand high and said, I can go! Just recently I admitted this to that new employee, still feeling guilty I guess, and she responded that she wouldn’t have even thought it would be possible for her to go. 


Later I told a friend that I was getting to go after all and she immediately responded with: “Oh good! I had been praying you would get to go!” Then I told my bible study group and some of them said they had been praying for it as well. 


All this to say, that if you don’t have ‘stealth prayers’ in your life, you need to get some. But also, be brave. Ask for the big things. Maybe they won’t happen, but, maybe…. they will. 

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