Answered Prayer

For those of you that know us well, you know that Vipul's job search has been quite a journey. As I'm sitting here looking through countless journal entries, I'm realizing that I haven't fully processed that our journey has come to an end. I claimed this verse for us years ago:

"Some wandered in desert wastelands, finding no way to a city where they could settle.
They were hungry and thirsty, and their lives ebbed away.
Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them from their distress.
He led them by a straight way to a city where they could settle."
Psalm 107:4-7

There is much I don't understand, but what I know is that God's love never fails. I'm without more words. Thankfully my husband is not and here are his.


So, we’re moving to Charlotte at the end of the month. I’ve gotten a new job with a large practice there. It has been a long journey, and Kindra has asked me to share a bit about it.

Before I go any further, please know that when I talk about trials or struggles, I’m in no way comparing myself to the real suffering that goes on in this world and is evident on any given day of the news cycle. I am immeasurably blessed, with a gorgeous, loving wife, beautiful kids, and a comfortable home. Even professionally, I have a stable, high-paying job with a relatively high level of security and prestige. But trials come in all shapes and sizes, and I have found that the worst trial is the one we each face ourselves.

When I joined my group in Tampa, I was very excited about the opportunity, but I soon learned that there were some issues that would make it difficult for me to stay long-term. There were too many restrictions and handcuffs, and after a while I could feel the frustration mounting and wearing me down. I tried to change some of these things, but was unable to, and I knew I had to look for another job. This was a big deal, because due to my restrictive covenant it meant uprooting and leaving Tampa and starting all over in new city. But thankfully Kindra was understanding and supportive.

Unfortunately, the economy was in recession, Obamacare passed into law, and physician hiring slowed to a crawl. I also wasn’t looking for just any job, but was waiting for something truly better, something that I really felt was God’s plan. There were several opportunities I turned down, a few that turned me down, and the months rolled on without anything coming together. It grew progressively harder on me—after spending my entire adult life training, I just wanted to be settled in the right job and city. Five years after beginning this job, I am now moving on, and here are some things I learned along the way:

     

      1.  God can take it.

Most Christians, had they been a fly on the wall in our home during the hardest times, would have called me a blasphemer for the things I said in anger about God. I was thoroughly convinced at times that He was cruel, hated me, and out to get me. I openly regretted being a Christian, doubted God’s existence, and pretended to stop caring what He thought. But God is big. Really big. And He is not in the least bit insecure about it. So He can handle me screaming at Him in my pain and confusion, and I think it makes Him glad when we share our hearts as honestly as possible.

      2.  God has not forgotten you.

Much of the time, as one opportunity after another fell through, I felt that God had abandoned me. I thought that He didn’t hear me, or had given up on me, or had turned His back on me. I thought that He cared so much about everyone else, but not me. I felt like I was defective, that He had cast me aside as a mistake.

He had not.

God has never forgotten me or you, and He never will. This is something that, until recently, my head and my heart have been unable to agree upon. As much as you believe it in your head that God is with you, peace is only possible when your heart buys into it too.

      3.  God has a plan. Really.

I think most of us would be ok with a little hardship if we could see that it all turns out well in the end. I mean, halfway through a romantic movie when the relationship inevitably sours or falls apart, no one’s really thinking the main character is going to end up alone, right? But the uncertainty of it, the unfairness of it, is what makes it so hard. I was convinced that even if I did eventually find a great job with a great group in a great city, I would never understand or feel good about the time and heartache it took to get there. I was wrong.

I have learned a ton in my current job, and I would not have been qualified for the new one without that experience. We have also been able to go through many other personal trials with the support of our friends in town. Most importantly, this trial has made real to me that God really does know what He is doing. Repeat it to yourself when you doubt: He knows what He’s doing.

     4.  Keep moving forward.

This was the hardest thing to learn for me. I have spent most of my life on a prescribed path, like most people in medicine, and this was the first time that I was derailed from it. Stuck in the mud, I cried out to God to rescue me, but I put my life on hold waiting for Him to do so. I refused to live in so many other areas, thinking that “why should we bother doing ____, when we might move soon?” But when we’ve fallen down or fallen off the path, I think God wants us to keep crawling forward as best as we can, in every way that we can. Perseverance in the face of hopelessness creates a purity of faith, and I think God loves to see it. It’s weird, but it wasn’t until I began embracing every other area of my life and tried to be content with work that things started happening with the job search.

Many of you are probably experiencing much harder trials than I’ve ever had to, and my heart goes out to you. Open your heart to God, believe the best you can—He will not let you down.