Trial of Faith

Okay, a little religious moment here. It has always been my understanding that great and marvelous things happen only after what is usually called a "trial of faith." Again, as I understand it, that means that your faith is tested and if you weather it well, you are blessed with whatever blessing you darn blessed well need.

So...that's not how it happens for me. I get pissed off and good things happen. Go figure. Let me elucidate:

A few months ago I was unemployed. Couldn't get a job doing anything. Seriously. Not even as a janitor. At first I was depressed. Then I got mad. Really mad. Those that know me well (or think they know me) have a hard time imagining me getting mad - well, maybe my kids and wife understand. But that is not the point. I got pissed with a capital "P" (sounds messy, huh?) Being thus and duly worked up to yon dizzy heights, I went to a temp service (which I didn't really want to go to - bad experiences in the past). Within a week, I was working.

Example #2: This past weekend was a bad one for me. I had talked to quite a few people and became discouraged about graduate school. It all boiled down to not wanting to spend the time and money getting an advanced degree and then being stuck in the same place I was just a few months ago: Unemployed and mad. By Sunday evening, I had given up any thoughts of going back to school and resigned myself to a boring job for the rest of my life.

Monday morning while I was driving to work, I was thinking more and more about it and was getting madder and madder by the minute. When I checked my email at work, I had a message from a person who I used to work for at the library at WSU. Last week I had asked her for a letter of recommendation. This is a very small part of her reply:

"I surely hope all works out well for you and your future studies. I can imagine that this must be a very challenging time in your life right now. But you know what they say about God, He never gives you more than you can handle. So there you have it, the measure of faith He has in you and your family."

This is from someone who is not the same religion as myself. I have to say that it is exactly what I needed to hear at that point. So I said to myself, "Screw it, I'm going to go back to school even if I can't do jack-squat with a MS degree. I just don't care."

Example #3: I had two of the three letters of recommend I needed. I had no idea where I was going to get the third. I didn't want to ask my current boss, but I would if it became necessary. I figured there was no way one of my old professors would remember me. Again, I started to get mad. After making the decision to go ahead and try for graduate school and then failing because I could only get two recommends would just about have broken me. So I looked up the email of a professor I had taken a few anthropology courses from and fired off a semi-beligerant email (okay, it really wasn't, but it sounded that way when I read it in my head). An hour later I get a reply:

"Of course I remember you! I'd be happy to write a letter of support for you and it would be very favorable."

Wow. Just...wow...

So there it is. Now, I'm not foolish enough to actually believe that good things happen to me because I get angry. But it is that anger that puts me in motion and gets the job done. I've spent so much of my life being the easy-going type guy and just letting things slide - taking a "meh...screw it..." attitude. I'm not saying that has suddenly taken a drastic change, but there it is.

Yes, I have been blessed. I'm just not sure I understand why or how.