Write for God

Some weeks ago, my husband bought a bottle of pinot grigio whose label reminded him of me. It read Santa Margherita, or St. Margaret, who is my patron saint. My parents named me after the saint of the Sacred Heart of Jesus because I was born on her feast day. We saved the bottle for the day when I started working again.

Tonight, we shared a glass after my first day at a new job.

I am working for a much smaller company than I was before when I was in county government. A friend whom I used to work did her best to get me hired as part of an arrangement that will find me working at a not-for-profit research institute four days a week and freelancing for another for-profit branch on the fifth. I’ll be writing from my home office for my friend and doing communications, volunteer coordination, fundraising and other duties at an office less than 15 minutes from home.

I couldn’t have hoped for a better alternative to the pressure-cooker commutes I once had and the constant stress of spending a year at an office where I was looking for a way out before I’d been there for six weeks.  For months, I was trying to get out and then, after I lost my job, I spent other months trying to get hired elsewhere. Along the way, I became a different person with a more God-centered life and a deep gratitude for all I’ve learned during my months in Gethsemani.

A friend whom I had lunch with this week shook his head in acknowledgement when I told him I had emerged a better person after my trials. “That’s what happens with steel tools,” he said. “You put them through fire to make them stronger and better.”

I’m better-tempered steel now and I’m grateful for all of the friends, relatives and strangers who prayed for me during these difficult months. A caring woman sent me a novena through The Bride and the Dragon, the superb Catholic site that my husband and I read daily. I asked Sr. Briege McKenna to pray for me and her staff sent me a message that she would.

The other daily communicants who know my mother at her home parish were praying for me. A teacher had her kindergarten class in parochial school remember me in their daily prayers. A wonderful friend who has a busy life checked on me periodically and sent me prayer energy. A lovely couple whom we’ve never met sent us a check as a gift and an organization Kevin works with forwarded us funds from their own meager resources to help us out. Somehow, my family and I were nestled in God’s loving hands throughout our ordeal. God put angels in our path.

Months later, we have a new grandson as part of our family. We’re all here, our health is good and the family is all the more grateful for all of the blessings God sent us disguised as sorrows. I have passed through the stages of grief that Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross outlines in On Death and Dying, a groundbreaking work I read while I was in college many years ago.

There are five stages in bereavement, according to Dr. Kubler-Ross:  denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Sometimes, I would go through four of the five on the same day, but prayer helped me ascend to acceptance. As worry began to be replaced by greater faith, my belief that God was looking out for us never wavered, even on my lowest days. 

I was fortunate to have a husband as loving as Kevin, who was my rock and my salvation each day. My children–both the grown ones who live away from home and the 12-year-olds–were my reasons to go on during the hours of despair when I wondered how I would keep them fed. My family offered support, love and care without measure. Certain friends proved themselves to be genuine and others didn’t. This experience separated the sheep from the goats for me.

I thank God that I was surrounded by wonderful, talented people in my professional networking groups during the months I attended as many meetings as I could just to get out of the house on days when I might not have changed out of my pajamas. There are many I will keep in touch with just because I grew to care for them very deeply. I wouldn’t have had the privilege of meeting them if I’d been working at the job I had lost.

Job coaches helped me beyond measure. Two gentlemen ran a terrific group that offered practical solutions, financial advice and networking one day a week at no charge. The county’s employment services agency led me to some caring people who gave me tips, encouragement and hope.

During these past months, I was abandoned by harsh people whose meanness and insecurities I now pity. At the same time, I was also lifted up by an entire team of supporters, some of whom I never would have met if I hadn’t lost my job. My life is so much richer now that I have become spiritually advanced enough to thank God for purifying me through pain, as in Revelation 7:13-14:

“Who are these wearing white robes, and where did they come from?” I said to him, “My Lord, you are the one who knows.” He said to me, “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

When God sends misfortune and injustice, we can seek revenge or we can wash our robes in the blood of the Lamb. As we pass through the stages of bereavement, “The world breaks everyone, and afterwards some are stronger in the broken places,” as Ernest Hemingway wrote in A Farewell to Arms.

We bend, we break, we heal, we are stronger. We trust in God and he comes to us when we need Him most.