This is probably one of my most favourite things on the internet right now. If you haven’t already seen this already, watch it. Actually, even if you have seen it…watch it again.
I’ve seen this advert played on tv a hundred times in the last couple of weeks, and every time it makes me cry.
Last November, I graduated from Bible College and I got my degree. I guess like a lot of people my age, I thought a lot of my (employment) problems would go away once I finally had that piece of paper.
Turns out that degrees aren’t a one way ticket into your dream job.
I’ve been praying so much about the direction that God wants to take my life in now that I’ve finished my degree, and I feel desperate to move away and start my own life somewhere that’s not here, but it’s looking like this isn’t going to be possible for a very very very long time.
I’m not really into the whole new years resolution hype or anything like that, because I always forget about them, and then I spend the rest of the year feeling pretty rubbish and wishing my time away until the next January 1st so I can start (and fail) all over again. But at the beginning of this year, I really felt like God wanted me to be more hopeful. I want to be one of these people who isn’t afraid to get my hopes up over new opportunities or new adventures, and not feel completely broken when they don’t always work out.
The reason this advert speaks to me so much is because I’m reminded that sometimes all we really need is for someone to take a chance on us, and to see something in us that tells them that we’re worth investing in.Applying for jobs and pushing doors and trying to better yourself so someone will see that something in you is so hard, and it can be so easy to lose hope when you hear no after no after no. It’s easy to become cynical and afraid to take these new opportunities out of fear of rejection. But I also feel so frustrated and stuck and it can be hard feeling like being you isn’t really enough sometimes. It certainly doesn’t make me want to embrace the new year with hope.
Right now, I don’t have a group of lovely pink haired ladies waiting in the wings to encourage me or help me go on a new adventure, but that’s not to say that I don’t have a reason to have hope. I’m learning (and it’s a pretty painful lesson to learn!) that life is full of no’s, but they’re not always personal. I can often take these things a little too personally at times, which usually leads to more beating myself up and wondering why I’m not good enough, particularly when I’m spending most of my time applying for jobs (most of which I feel ridiculously underqualified for).
I’ve been reading the book of Joshua over the last couple of days, and I love that, regardless of our circumstances or feelings we are commanded to be strong and very courageous. Right now, I don’t want to feel this way (isn’t self-pity so much easier?!), but going back to God’s word over and over and over again, I’m reminded that God doesn’t become someone different because of how we feel. He doesn’t stop being good because I don’t feel like He is being good. He doesn’t stop being faithful or sovereign or any of these things because I can’t see the good He is doing in my life.
A friend once told me that on His weakest, most vulnerable day, God is still bigger than me on my strongest, most successful day. I can’t remember why she told me this, but it’s resonated so strongly with me over the last few weeks because I’ve needed to know, above all else, that God isn’t wasting my life right now. In this season of uncertainty and waiting and heartbreak and hopelessness, God isn’t wasting anything I do.
I’m learning if that’s the only reason I have to keep doing what I’m doing, then that’s a pretty good reason to keep going.
