God's kindness to me: He hired an assistant for me!

I have been a bit absent from my blog, but that doesn't mean that God hasn't been working on my heart and working in my life. Right now I am feeling so blessed. I am so thankful to feel Him so real and close.

This past year has had a lot of staffing changes. My business is small so to lose an employee means that I have a pretty major disruption in my business. My clients don't feel it too much, but my family does. I feel it.

When my last assistant told me that it wasn't a good fit for her I felt that it was a difficulty from the Lord, meant to help me increase my faith. As this was going to be my fourth hire for this position in just a year it caused me to reconsider my processes. What I have been doing is advertising for as many applications as possible, resumes that looked interesting were followed up with a written questionnaire and if they still looked like a good fit I called them in for an interview. If the interview went well then I had some follow up testing. In my worldly wisdom it seemed like a pretty decent way to do it, except for that it wasn't working.

At the same time my pastor released his latest book for free on Amazon for one day. I may have eventually purchased it, but I got it at that time and started reading it. The timing was just so perfect that it seemed like a gift from the Lord. It's called "God Told Me" and it is about giving the Lord your decisions to make. This furthered my conviction that I was to do nothing and let the Lord bring me an assistant.

So, I did nothing. I just waited. I had no idea what it would look like. As someone who is generally pretty proactive this was very difficult! Also, I was a little nervous. I had hired someone before that I thought came from the Lord, but it hadn't worked out well. Can He be trusted really?

I interviewed someone from my bible study that was seeking employment. It wasn't a good fit for either of us. So I kept waiting... This is where I must tell you that I don't feel like someone of great faith. I did doubt. Was this really going to work out? Did the Lord care about something like how well things were going for me in my job? Was this too trivial for Him? Was this too worldly to be deserving of His attention?

I had a moment of weakness and I posted the job on Craigslist. I convinced myself that because I was on the site anyways that it wasn't anything extra and so it was maybe where God was leading me. But I knew the truth was that I didn't trust God to bring me someone in the time frame that I wanted and I wanted to get this show on the road. The next morning my devotions was Matthew 14 which has the story of Peter walking on the water.

I identified with him:
29 “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” 31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

The footnotes in my bible directed me to James 1:5-8 which felt like the Lord was reprimanding me directly:
James 1:5-8 New International Version (NIV) 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

Oh no, the Lord was saying that if I don't trust him, I should not expect to receive anything from him!  I actually rejoiced to feel the Lord speaking directly to me, albeit a reprimand.  I rejoice that he cares for me enough to correct me.  Immediately I took my ad off Craigslist and continued waiting. I had had multiple people ask me "Why don't you use a temp service?" and so I started to wonder if this was the Lord speaking to me. If so, where would I start? I began praying that if this is what he was directing me to do that he bring a temp service to me. I prayed that someone from a temp/job placement service would contact me without me making the first contact.

The very next morning I received an email from someone who I didn't remember meeting before that wanted to talk to me about selling their house. Her signature on her email indicated that she worked at Michigan Works - a state organization that worked with the unemployment office in helping people find employment. This timing was too perfect! I felt directed there by the Lord. I met with her about her house and while I was there I asked her about my desire to hire an assistant. She sent me 3 resumes. One said that she didn't think it would be a good fit for her, the other two had interest. I sent them the questionnaire and based on their answers I selected just one to interview. I loved talking to her and all her answers made it look like she would be such a great candidate. When I did the testing it came out that she has very very poor math skills. Now I was confused: was this the candidate that God had selected for me? Was math skills really that big of a deal? Did the Lord know that she would be good for me even though the testing didn't go well?

After a lot of prayer and conversations with my husband and co-worker I felt that although it didn't seem like the best choice for me based on human wisdom, everything seemed to point to this being the person that the Lord had selected for me and I would move forward with her. I wanted to have faith that the Lord knew what was best for me better than I did.

That morning I received a phone call from the person who heads up the department at the community college where people could get an associates in being an Administrative Assistant. She said she would send me a resume in the next few days. This phone call was so well timed. Another couple of hours and I would have offered the position to the candidate that I had. For her to call right then seemed like a release from the Lord that I did not have to hire this other person. It felt (to a much lesser degree!) like Abraham almost sacrificing Isaac - the Lord honored his willingness to do so but released him from the obligation. 

Later that day the other candidate from Michigan Works called me to check on her resume. My main hesitation was that I didn't think I would be able to afford her: she has very extensive management experience and seemed overqualified. I interviewed her and she seems like a perfect fit. So, after much prayer I did end up offering her the position and she actually accepted! I feel so blessed. The Lord blessed me with someone perfect that I normally couldn't afford. Amazing!

I learned through this that the Lord is faithful, he cares about all aspects of my life, and he can be trusted. Through this experience I not only gained a new assistant, I also grew closer to the Lord and learned to trust him. Now I'm looking for more decisions that I can give to him!