Jacob

I'm back! I've been holding off on the blog posts in the midst of my inner turmoil about what to do with my life. I am pleased to say that I have finally made a decision: I'm quitting my job at the bank, starting a new part-time job as the communications coordinator for my church, and going back to school in the fall to get my MFA in creative writing. I'm excited but nervous and more than a little uncertain of what the future holds...but pretty convicted that this is the right thing to be doing.

I actually have written a couple of blog posts that I never published during the last few months, so I'm including one of them below.


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For the past few weeks my whole self has been a big jumble of worry, anxiety (are those different?), conviction, questions, dread, uncertainty, certainty, and shallow breaths. I'm thinking about quitting my job, a nice, stable, pretty high-paying IT job at a bank, a corporate 8-5 job, a job I've had for 5 years and been promoted through, to start what seems almost like a new life. Working half time for a church as their communications coordinator without medical benefits, for lower pay but great hours, great job, creativity, and a flexible schedule, while I go back to school to get my MFA in creative writing. I feel so....great about that option. It's the flexible schedule I've wanted for years, the creativity I've yearned for, the meaningful purpose behind the workplace I know I'm never going to find at my bank. With the new job I can read and write and edit and highlight ways people can get involved with ministry or connect with each other. With school I can get my masters and learn to be a better writer and take some steps toward future opportunities. But I don't know exactly what those opportunities are and it really really really really scares me.

I'm afraid of what I'll give up when I quit. I feel like I need that paycheck, that the stability it gives is everything, that IT is such a smart place to be right now, that changing careers, at least the way I want to change them, is kind of a step down the economic chain that no American or responsible, budget-weary wife should be willing to make.

But this job does not help me become who I want to be. I want to be happy. I want to be creative. I want to do something that helps people, that uses my skills, that allows me to laugh and learn new things and wear tennis shoes and work from my house or an office or a park bench or a coffee shop or Brad's office. I want to not feel like a sellout.

God has told me very clearly that my job isn't right for me. I understand that it is his Holy Spirit working in me that has given me that conviction, that has been working in me through the internal discontent that's battled for years against the lure of stability. This job isn't right for me. Staying is practical, and smart, and worldly. It's what my parents would do. It's what my boss would do and has done. But for me staying is settling, and making a decision based on fear, and based on the messed up standards of this world we live in instead of what I'm being told by God about myself. When I think about it like that, I know I have to go. I have to take the risk and choose the thing that's scary but right.

I know I'm going to have these anxieties and uncertainties and second-guessings repeatedly over the next few months. I know I'm in many ways wrestling with God right now. But I think those things we really struggle through define us. And if I struggle with this and then make the decision that's right I believe it will mark me and my life, just like when Jacob wrestled with God and came out of it with both a blessing and a limp. God tells him, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome." The fact that I have to struggle to follow through with this decision says a lot about who I am and how I think and what I've been taught is the 'right way' to live. But the struggle is defining--the limp may be there, but the knowledge that I've wrestled with God and with men and yet chosen the thing that is best and bravest and right will be with me, blessing me in my life to come.