Gratitude and Despair and Humility

Quanah just called. After two years of unemployment, he has connected with a temp agency that apparently is actively involved in placing people to fill a variety of jobs.

After several days of substituting at various elementary schools, he went to a scheduled interview today for a temp position with what he thought was for a temp position with the Red Cross. Instead, he walked out with a job assembling 3-D glasses. I have to tell you, I didn't know what to say beyond "You're kidding?"

Nope, not kidding. As I think about it, I am torn between gratitude for the job, despair that his talents are seemingly wasted, and in the end, humility taking me by the hand and circling me back to thankfulness for this opportunity.

As I think of the hard time he has been going through and the lessons that God has been giving him about patience and trust and faith, I realize that I have been learning lessons too, the most important of which is letting your adult child stand on his own, help where you can and stand back when you must. Learning this lesson has made me a better parent, I think, and it has definitely made him a better adult.

At this moment, the opening of this door doesn't make a lot of sense to me but then, it is not my door to walk through. It is a door that will lead him to a sense of his manhood not being crushed anymore; it is a door that will lead him to other people, other connections; it is a door that will lead him to a stop-gap position that will give him time now to breathe, to plan, to get his and Erin's lives going in the direction of a solid foundation, not the quicksand they have been living on.

So - I feel great gratitude and a lot less despair now as I write this. Humility tells me to shed false pride. (Rom. 12:3) says - For by the grace given to me I tell everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than one ought to think, but to think soberly, each according to the measure of faith that God has apportioned.

Wise words, indeed.