Unemployment and How It's Good for Me

Back in the lavish days when we splurged on Disneyland.

If you can't tell from my post titles as of late, I am currently unemployed, in the true sense of the word. I am not on summer vacation. I am not taking a break from school. I'm not even taking a break for myself. I am unemployed because my yearlong internship/paid full-time job ended, as I knew it would, before I could secure another position. 

This has raised a variety of emotions. Over the past week, there has been much rejoicing about being unemployed. Though my internship was lovely (filled with nice people and generally nice tasks), it came with a two- to four-hour daily commute that tortured my soul when coupled with an eight-hour workday and a fifteen-minute lunch break.

I'm savoring the time to write, to clean, and to sew on all the buttons that had been waiting, estranged from their proper counterparts, until I had time for little things again. For the first time in my married life (all four months of it), I get to be home for real (having only a few hours, mostly marked by exhaustion from the day, didn't really count). Life lately has felt like a never-ending Saturday, without all the stress I had before when it was the only day to get something done. Taking this break right now is healing my soul from a lot of things.

Most of the time.

The other times I cry and panic and worry. I love having a job. I love doing things that matter to people. And I very much want to find a good job. When these concerns surface, they do so in a big way.

About a week before the end of my previous job, Super called me at work to see if my sister-in-law, a new BYU freshman, could stay with us for a few weeks. This sent me into an emotional freak out. (Not your fault, Bek. I like you! Let me explain.) I felt so worried about it because I had no idea what my life would look like by then. Would I be home all day? Would we need to move? Would I be commuting again? Not being able to picture myself three weeks from then terrified me.

Today, I've been reading the Apron Stage, a lovely blog to which my other sister-in-law Sarah contributed. The first posts of hers I read were actually the last ones (here and here), in which she announces the end of the Apron Stage blog and her own life changes. She says seven times "I do not know."

I wanted a scripture of my own that deals with these types of uncertainties—Sarah's past ones I'm reliving as I read (even though I know what happens next, generally, in the three years that follow that last post) and for my own.

I found this: after hearing a soul-shaking sermon from King Benjamin, a prophet in the Book of Mormon, his people say the following.

And we, ourselves, also, through the infinite goodness of God, and the manifestations of his Spirit, have great views of that which is to come; and were it expedient, we could prophesy of all things.

And it is the faith which we have had on the things which our king has spoken unto us that has brought us to this great knowledge, whereby we do rejoice with such exceedingly great joy.

These people are very happy and very certain about their future. But I don't think they were anymore certain about what the next day, week, or month would look like. They were certain that God would receive them safe and sound. I like that. As much as I'd like to see one month from now, "great views of that which is to come" might cover even better ground.