God Cares about the Desires of our Hearts

I was out of work for eight months, but now I have a job. How I came to have that job, and other aspects that have to do with it, is, I believe, a story of God's incredible goodness.

I was laid off from Microsoft, where I had worked as a linguist for eleven years, in May 2010. (During the time I'd been at Microsoft my husband had become pastor of a tiny church, and we had left the large church where I had been a member of a huge choir for fifteen years.) Because there aren't any other linguistic tech jobs here in the Seattle area for native speakers of English, and the academic field has moved on since I was last in that world, I started looking for an admin-type job. But I was overqualified and also too old. So eight months went by fruitlessly until I was contacted out of the blue by my former choir director, Scott, who is head of Worship and Music at our former large church. Scott asked me to work as his interim administrative assistant. Eventually he offered me the job permanently.

Meanwhile, last fall when I heard that that choir was going to present Mendelssohn's oratorio Elijah as a concert, I had asked Scott if I could sing in it. He had explained that many people would like to sing just for the concert, and he had to limit the choir for it to Sunday morning singers. I understood that, but was bitterly disappointed, since I had wanted to do Elijah for years, and didn't know if I'd ever get another chance. My husband, Jim, can attest to the fact that I often complained to him ("Can you believe they would do Elijah after we left?").

So after I started working at that church, I asked Scott if I could just rehearse with the choir, and he said yes. That was plenty good enough for me; just to sing the amazing words with other believers was wonderful. I had been singing with a secular chorus in the interim, and I remember the thrill I felt at the first rehearsal back with the church choir, as I sang with other believers the words from Elijah: "Our God is one Lord, and we will have no other gods before the Lord." But then about a month before the concert Scott invited me to join them for the concert, too, since I was on staff, and that was icing on the cake.

Here's how I think God was working in this: I could not for the life of me find a job, though I was diligently applying to jobs right and left. And then Scott contacted me with a job I did not even expect, working with people I highly respect and enjoy, at a familiar church, and in the department of that church that I was most at home in. That in itself shows God's care for me, to provide for me a job that is not only just a job, but one that makes me happy. But that's not all. God took thought for the desires of my heart--to sing in Elijah. Such an unimportant thing, yet it meant so much to me. I can still hardly believe that God would work this out, yet He did. He cared that much about such a little detail in my life.

What an amazing God!

There are more unknowns in Jim's and my future. They may not be wrapped up as neatly as this. But I know for sure that if God cared for me this way, that this is one more piece of evidence that He is a God to be trusted. We can go forward secure in His love.