In the course of less than 24 hours, my partner has been recommended for a job and subsequently will be interviewed for a job. At 7:30 am on a Saturday morning. She says it maybe that they are desperate to find someone! How does that happen? It is a job for a different company. Insurance to be sure, but a competitor. It pays significantly more than she is making now. In some ways that is nice. A nice compliment to her work, her work ethic, and her. Who knows who recommended her? She has worked with many companies and brokers and firms. Always professional and a great attitude and all those things you want in an employee.
We ran errands tonight for a trip to England. She will be going with me on a Div School trek to study worship. God love her for that. She is excited and I am excited to be able to share this part of my life with her. In all of its work and worship and wealth of experience. I don’t expect her to love every minute of it or become a seminary student herself. But it is an opportunity we could not pass up. It is a way for us to bring parts of ourselves together again. As we ran errands for the trip, we talked.
But as she says, it is an outrageous amount of money for something really doesn’t matter to her. In her words, she doesn’t work nearly hard enough for someone to pay six figures. “It just shows how screwed up the world’s priorities are.” She said it is an outrageous amount of money considering there are people who don’t make enough to feed their families. It is far, far from what she is trained to do. She fell into it. She tells me often that she feels as though she “plays pretend”. She is an Illinois girl who was raised with her two brothers on a dairy farm. Her father died when she was nine and her mother was a school nurse. She has never wished or wanted wealth. Only to live comfortably and able to pay the bills. She has more than provided for us. Particularly in this last year.
But when did it become a bottom line world? I see her struggle with the needs we have and yet remains unfulfilled. She is trying to determine what it is that she wants to do when she grows up. It is difficult to see where her road will take her. She misses her student contact and feels very far removed from her work with disabled students. Her heart is often trampled for the sake of someone’s bottom line. And it is not always her company’s bottom line. It may be a broker or a sales guy or a customer.
I so want her to find a way to use her talents in a way that feeds her. I have no idea how or where or when that will happen. She is realizing it too. I wouldn’t care if she quit tomorrow and worked at an Easter Seals camp. I can’t see the bigger plan and how all of this works. Why now? Why in Philadelphia of all places? And why keep pushing things toward a life of luxury? She doesn’t want it or need it. Neither of us do. A friend today told me she didn’t see our lives changing much no matter how much either of us made. It wouldn’t. We’d travel but I don’t see the Lexus or new house or jewelry.
I am amazed at times and confused and in conundrums. This too shall pass. Yet I have no idea where we shall pass to. We trust and hope it is for some greater reason. These goofy things that seem to be sent to remind us of how the other half lives.
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