Answered Prayers

After all the consumeristic, greedy galavanting in the last post, I feel a need to infuse this blog with some goodness. There will be a lot of snark on this page. So for once, let me offer something that is genuinely honest and heartfelt. Allow me to share a tad wee bit about my faith. I know it’s not considered polite to discuss religion in open company, so although it is something extremely important to me, I won’t be delving into my faith much on this blog. But I also believe that Freedom of Religion is one of the things that makes this nation great. So a little religious referencing would seem to be very appropriate for a census blog. To accompany this post, here’s my favorite painting of prayer, The Angelus by Millet.

I’m a teacher. And contrary to everything you’ve heard, teachers actually don’t earn a lot of money. I know, I know, shocker, right? I’ll give you a moment to process that. Well, when you add in that my wife is currently taking classes for her masters degree, you get a picture painted of a family whose monthly budget is starting to catch up with them. So, I took a second job. I started working second and third shift at our town’s gas station. And it wasn’t a bad job, it was just draining. And the price tag on this energy sieve was just minimum wage. I would go directly from school to the job and then come home at 11:30 only to get up again at 7:00 and start over again. I wasn’t getting any quality time with my wife or sons. I’m usually a pretty upbeat person, but I was getting down. One morning at church, I told the Man Upstairs, “God, this is not working out.” It was an exhausted plea.

That afternoon, I got a call from the census.

1 Corinthians 10:13 says, “No trial has come to you but what is human. God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength; but with the trial he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it.” The offer of a better salary (I now make working 20 hours a week what I was making from spending 30 hours at the gas station) was definitely “a way out” for me that day. I take comfort in the fact that God knows how weak I am, how lacking in strength I am, that he knows I can only take a week of trial before he provides the parachute I whine for. And to his omniscient credit, that struggle certainly drew me closer to Him and caused me to place my trust in Him to a new level.

When I staple up posters, I always scribble some extra comment in permanent marker, like “Super Flexible!” or “Need Local Workers!” When I’m leaving a poster on telephone pole outside a church, I add “This job was an answer to my prayers.” It sounds cheesy, but I really mean it. I hope that some family like mine will see it, somebody that could use just a little bit of extra help, and that my scrawled note will strike a chord in their mind. I know that for me, when I hear the noon bells striking, I turn and offer my thanksgiving.