So I've been going through some things in the past year, and I want to share something good God has done in my life.
My most recent employer has not been good to me. It hasn't been all bad, and I've had some good bosses in the last couple years, but a lot of that is just "meeting basic levels of decency" kind of stuff. When I hired on, it was a smaller privately-owned company (not exactly mom-and-pop, since we had a handful of locations around the country and at least one site each in England and China), so there was still a lot of the corporate attitude of "it's my ship and I'll sail it where I see fit," which gets unhealthy when the executives get rich and can manipulate the numbers well enough to fool a board of directors who aren't particularly savvy to the industry. It got better since then, but there were some holdovers from the previous regime: managers who have been described as comic book villains, and people under them who don't even bother hoping the mangers' malfeasance is addressed even when it becomes a topic for discussion in production meetings.
One of them--not my boss, but I had to work with one of his mildly disturbed subordinates who retired when covid hit, so suddenly he had to pick up the slack and didn't like it--made me a target. He started floating "evidence" of my own malfeasance to my boss, which I didn't find out until my boss clued me in about six months later that this manager wanted to put me on a "last chance to step up your game before you're fired" program. My boss wasn't having any of that, but he and the other manager both knew that my boss wasn't familiar enough with my work to challenge the accusations straight up to the manager's face. So at my boss's direction, I provided my commentary, which was validated by a third party that knew more about the topic than the rest of us combined. In short, 80% of the accusations were indicative of gross (and inexcusable, considering his tenure) ignorance and flat-out lies. But my boss sat on the matter, letting evidence grow. We were both busy with other truly urgent things, but I knew in the long run if he didn't do something, it wouldn't matter if my real error rate was under 3% in a company where we can barely get 80% of our product out the door correct the first time around; my part of the process was early in the workflow so all kinds of ramifications could be attributed to me.
Then my boss's boss decided to put me on that "last chance" program, for unrelated reasons. Over the previous decade I had made two or three mistakes that were visible to him; not that I committed them directly, but that I didn't correct them before an external auditor found them.
My boss recognized that audits are a team effort and failing to catch something which I had provided to his boss and his boss's pet experts for review was not the same thing as creating the problem, but it didn't matter, and since he was in my reporting chain, my boss couldn't blow him off and try to "manage" the problem.
I saw the hand writing on the wall. I knew this other manager was full of crap and I had a solid defense, but also knowing that it wouldn't matter, and that my boss's boss wouldn't be interested in my successes if they were anything short of perfection, I would still go home feeling angst.
Well, some time ago my mother was inspired to ask Mary to crush the heads of any demons that were harassing her. She had been telling me about the harassment, not even realizing at first that it was a preternatural phenomenon, and then when it occurred to her to pray that prayer, the relief was immediate.
You've really got to try it. If something seems wrong, just say something like "Mary, please crush the heads of the evil spirits that are causing worry and confusion right now about X."
I started doing it for myself. Knowing my defense was solid and I had my boss and another expert in my corner while this manager only had the despair of the other people he'd wronged as his defense, I would ask Mary to crush the heads of the demons causing me anxiety and worry and whatnot.
Mary came through every time, God bless her. I felt relief in minutes, but usually it only took seconds for complete peace to take over. Every single time.
So I knew it was just an opportunity for the demons to harass me, steal my joy. I don't know what they had to do with this manager, himself, but I can only pray that he wouldn't cooperate too much with their promptings.
When I would pray about this situation, I would get a sense of "just wait; something is in the works for you." So I figured I should hunker down and tough it out.
But the handwriting was on the wall by then, and I could see it wasn't going to get better. The manager could have retired, but for all I know--and he was just the sort to do it--my demise and even the company's was going to be his last project as an employee. So after consulting with some family members, who were unanimous about it, I put in my notice.
I didn't want to leave my boss in the lurch, since he had a lot of irons in the fire and yet another audit coming up a month later, but I couldn't let this go on forever with him keeping me in a holding pattern while I'm trying to be his wingman.
So I moved halfway across the country to stay with family while I rethought my life. And the entire time, I had thoughts like "Was this right? Was I supposed to keep waiting for things to change at work? Did I not have enough patience for God to finish setting up the dominoes in my life?" But I never got a sense of "this is the wrong choice." I constantly prayed that I would follow God's will, that He would show me His plans to the extent I should have been able to read them. Nothing seemed wrong.
But the days staying with family unemployed turned into weeks, and I had a few important epiphanies about my career path, but nothing actionable; and the doubts started to creep back in. So I submitted an online application for a retail position I'd been eyeing up while I was second-guessing myself.
And all this time, I'm praying that I didn't try to "get ahead" of God, try to take the reins out of His hands to impose my wisdom on His.
Yesterday, I was offered the job, and I start after Christmas.
I received two words of knowledge, of sorts, during that day.
The first: I'd been praying the surrender novena. Even though I had reminders in my phone, I sometimes missed a day, or lost track of which day I was supposed to be on. But yesterday was the ninth day of the novena.
The second: On my way home from the interview where I go the offer, I stopped at the church I'd been attending to go into the adoration chapel and offer some prayers of thanksgiving. On my way out, I saw on the church's electronic marquee--which rarely or never lists full Bible passages--the full text of Jeremiah 29:11:
For I know full well the plans I have for you, plans for your welfare and not for your misfortune, plans that will offer you a future filled with hope.Verses 12 through 14 might also have been in there; I was in too much of a daze to retain most of the text before it changed to the next message, but there was a lot of it, and I did recall the 29:11 citation all the way home. Just for the sake of completeness, here is the rest:
When you call out to me and come forth and pray to me, I will listen to you. When you search for me, you will find me. When you seek me with all your heart, I will allow you to discover me, says the Lord. I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.
