Experience

  

   As you all know, I did not get the job I interviewed for in Charlotte a month ago.  It was with Joni and Friends International Disability Center.  I can not believe I had never heard of them before!  They do (have been doing for years) so much for the disabled community!!!  So you can better help me in my job search, HERE is the actual link to the job I thought had Katherine Hodges written all over it.  I thought the interview went well, but the director said when it came down to experience, others had more.  
   I was pretty bummed last night.  Excerpts from my conversation with God over the matter:

"I thought You wanted me to ask more specific things of You, to show how big You are.  I had just realized that helping the disabled community was what I wanted to do!  It would have been awesome to give me this- I have to be out of my house THIS month!"

"You know I could do this job!  If THEY don't think I have experience, who will?!" 

"I'm getting experience the best I know how when people won't give me a job.  I'm on my SECOND internship."

"I'm almost 25 and still have to order off the DOLLAR menu, Lord!" 

"sniffle.snot.honk."

"Have I been going about this wrong?  Do you want me to get the first corporate job I can so my resume will have at least ONE place listed for over a year?  Or is it OK what I'm doing?  Just be more clear!!!!"

   For awhile I read Romans 8:28 over and over.  Being one verse, it got old fast.  I started flipping through this Joyce Meyer amplified Bible.  Right away I happened to flip to commentary Joyce did in Hebrews.  I busted out laughing.

Have you ever needed a job, but every employment ad you read asked for someone with experience?  You wanted a job but did not have any experience, and it frustrated you.  I have been in that situation, and I remember thinking, "how can I get experience if nobody will give me a job?"

God also wants experienced help.  When we go to work for God in His kingdom, He will use everything in our past.  No matter how painful it was.  He considers it experience.  Many of us have gone through difficult things, and those things qualify us to help take someone else through them too.  Hebrews 5:8, 9 tells us that even Jesus gained experience through the things He suffered.

How could I write to you right now if I had not gone through some difficult things and gained some valuable experience?  How could I teach others how to forgive those who have hurt them if I had not first had the experience of forgiving those who hurt me?

I encourage you to look at your pain from a different viewpoint.  A right perspective makes all the difference in your life.  Take a look at how you can use your pain for someone else's gain.  Can your mess become your ministry?  Maybe you have gone through so much that you feel you have enough experience to be a specialist in some area.  I am a specialist in overcoming shame, guilt, poor self-image, lack of confidence, fear, anger, bitterness, self-pity, etc.  Let me encourage you to be positive about your past and your pain, and realize that it can all be used for good in God's kingdom.

-Joyce Meyer

So yeah, I was totally fine after that. :b