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There is a Chinese saying: In nature there are unexpected storms and in life unpredictable vicissitudes.

Imagine beautiful morning, you are dressed up as usual and drive to work with a smile on your face. When you walk into your office, you manager is at your door, smiling as usual, and telling you with a gentle voice, “you are laid off”.

This is not just a sad story. It happened to me many years ago while I was in my full time job upon coming to America. I had worked so hard ever during my internship to get that job. I had enjoyed it and found it stimulating. I had made a plans for next five years of my life, and here I was laid off after only two years.

It was very hard to describe the feeling of being laid off with any words. But being well adjusted, I was able to cope nicely. I chose to treat myself with a smile instead of tears, anger or complaining. The day after being laid off, I took my eighteen-month-old son to China, throwing the unemployment shadow way behind us and enjoying the reunion with my family, relatives and friends in China. I relaxed as much as I could during the visit. Because of the unemployment, I didn’t have to worry being back to America to work within a certain time. I visited a famous food street in my hometown Kunming and tried all kind of food in different restaurants day by day from the beginning of the street to the very end. My mouth still water whenever I recall that wonderful food experience. Upon returning to America, I was able to take a long nap every day for a week to adjust the time difference between US and China. There was a vast difference a year later when I, upon returning from China, had to go back to work the day after the exhausting trip. I was so tired and hard able to keep my eyes open every afternoon due to jet lag. In comparison, being unemployed for a while was not so bad at all.

During the eight months I was unemployed, I had no sadness, depression, anger or complaining. I enjoyed each day of being a full time mother, or taking some classes whenever I could. When spring time finally arrived, I didn’t want to give up traveling in my favorite season just because of being unemployed. My son and I went Grand Canyon with our friends. We enjoyed this wild nature where no depression or sadness can be hidden so much. There was no time either space for sadness for anything in this marvelously place. As a mother, I spent the most joyful and quality time with my son in the eight months I was unemployed.

Some of my friend don’t understand why I was happy and contented during this unemployment. They could not help asking me the secret. My answer is so simple. “When you have God in your heart, His honors are with you always.”

It is not true that I never asked God, “Why do you treat me unfairly?” “Why do you allow all of these happen right after I became a Christian? ” “Don’t you really love me?” God in his infinite wisdom didn’t answer me right away, instead He lead me to the answer in His Word, the Bible. As I read the Bible more each day, I realized that the love from God is not the love we normally think. The love from God brings sunshine and rain; sunshine to brighten your path but also rain to clean your heart. He gives the wind to refresh your mind and He hold your hands to walk through the rain, wind or storms. We grow so much through the storm of life.

The faith to God made me live happily and confidently in the days I was unemployed. I truly believe what Bible revealed to me.

“ Look at the birds of the air, …… and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”(Matthew 6:26)

We are created in God’s image. I believe I am of more value than a bird. Even some Chinese who have not had the chance to learn Bible believe in the old Chinese saying: “Heaven always gives a man a way out”, which also reflects that God looks after his people. Having faith in God doesn’t mean a job will fall into your lap out of Heaven. Stepout in faith and make our efforts toward the goal. Another ancient Chinese saying: “Man must try though his success depends upon the will of Heaven,” explains the relationship between our efforts and the will of God. The experiences of looking for a job made me believe more that whatever God gives is the best. After eight months of being unemployed, the job I got was quite different from my previous job either from my training. I didn’t expect to do that type of job. However, I accepted it. Life sometimes is like that you planted flowers but no blossom while willows form the shadow without being planned. Only God knows what you need. When you think you need colorful flowers, God gives you the cool shadow of trees. It is a calming effect. After a while, you learn what God gave you was really the best, and you got it when you needed most. There was a lot of pressure from the new job since it was a new field for me. I tried my best to learn as much as I could. Another aspect of the job change was that I had to leave my son with a baby-sitter often in order to travel for work, including some weekends.

God is awesome. What I have learned in the year and half I have been working at that job has been perfectly applied to what I am doing in Western Theological Seminary. The experience made me understand better why today’s honor is from yesterday’s test.

Unemployment makes people worry about tomorrow more than today. How can you be happy today if you worry about tomorrow? Today’s load is enough for today. Why add tomorrow’s load on top of the today’s to collapse soul? If you are trying to design your tomorrow you might be disappointed. If you submit your tomorrow to God. He will give a brighter day than you expected.

© 2005 Jade Yuxuan Gao