#postundergrad

hey everyone, i’m in my last year of undergrad and i’m super worried about so much. things like: will i even graduate? am i gonna get a job? will i be successful? 

For a long time, I’ve been seeking employment. For over seven months, to be exact. I don’t write much about this. It’s an exhausting and often discouraging effort. Ironically, it requires strength and hope to keep moving forward. 

I feel like the constant process of applying to jobs only to receive rejection after rejection can begin to break anyone down – even the most ambitious, confident person. So that explains it. The reason I have chosen to refrain from writing about this part of my life is because it has begun to tear apart the little bit of confidence I’ve worked hard to build up over the years. 

That’s really somber. But it’s also the plain truth.

I walked into the new year really believing that if Abba did not open doors to employment for me, He would at least continue to speak clarity into this process. 

I started this journey off knowing full well what I wanted to do. If my heart was for Abba and Him only, then why was He not opening doors for me? Instead, He was only closing doors, even when some doors seemed totally okay to walk through at first. When I had the opportunity to work alongside wonderful people, it seemed even then that things fell apart for no reason and those doors closed, too. I won’t lie. For a good month, I stopped applying. I didn’t have it in me anymore. Feelings of inadequacy and the build-up of lies came flooding in. “You’re not good enough. No one wants to hire you. No one wants you.”

Throughout this process, I’ve reconnected with past supervisors, mentors and coworkers only to be told, “If I had a position for you, I’d hire you right away!” 

I wonder. See, the confidence I’ve built up over the years was not false. I was never the one to tell myself that I was doing a great job. It was these people. It was those around me. It was the people I love and whose opinions I trust. 

So here I am now. I still know what I want to do. It’s still for Abba. So the question remains: Why isn’t Abba opening doors for me? 

I recently learned that my Pastor has been secretly trying to find a way to employ me to no avail. The other day, he was asking me how job hunting has been. After awhile, he looked at me and said, “Gloria, sometimes God closes doors so that one day we can walk through the right door.” I’ve heard this a thousand times. I’ve uttered these words to myself a thousand times. But he quickly continued with a story that comes from Acts 16:6-15. “For a woman and her household, the Spirit of God closed doors and redirected the steps of Paul and his companions to Macedonia.” 

God closed doors again and again for Paul and his friends, who just wanted to share the love of God. Why would God close doors if they were doing His work? As I was reading over the text, I realized that even though Paul wasn’t able to spread the gospel in those areas, God would open doors for other people to do His work there. It wasn’t that Paul was incapable of doing the work. That work was just not meant for him. Where one door closes for one person, it opens for another. There is purpose in all of it. 

Then, I realized the significance and beauty of the story. God orchestrated the closing of doors so that Paul and his friends would come to Macedonia and save not only a woman whose “heart was opened to respond to Paul’s message,” but also her entire family. God opened a door for them through this woman, whose life was forever changed that day. 

My Pastor reminded me, “So when God says ‘no,’ know that you can trust Him.” 

When i look at photos, tagged photos of me, and ig photos. I see a lot of group photos. 

I felt a bit nostalgic when i went through my 19th birthday party photos. I had a lot of amazing friends.  I realized that life brought us together, and it took us on a different path. 

I wonder how my friends are doing. I wish nothing, but happiness for them.

Today, I made my third student loan payment (really the loan company auto-charged me), which totals around $1000 since I graduated. Comparatively to the sum it’s still only a tiny amount, but it’s on its way.

Strangely, I am not as disgruntled as I thought I would be. Every dollar that is sucked cleaned out of my bank account is a reminder that I reaped top-notched education and formative experience.

Do I wish it would have been cheaper. Hell yeah.

Do I wish I went elsewhere to have it cheaper. Mmm, probably not. Actually, most definitely not.

Goodness gracious, I’m so weird and illogical and irrational and uneconomical.

About two months ago, I presented a prayer of thanksgiving for the Bacculaurate service on my graduation day. Without the intention of being humorous, I have said, “For some of us, we (the graduating class of 2014) have the gift of moving back in with our parents…,” which I think represent somewhat of a financial haven. In retrospect, I can see the humor, but in reality I was quite sober. These past two months, I’ve gotten a taste of the “real world,” I like it to call it “post-undergrad life,” and it is shockingly frustrating.

Life is too damn expensive. That’s what I’ve been realizing over and over, again and again. I’ll admit I’ve been quite uninformed concerning the “hidden and unadvertised costs” of life. Ignorance is bliss to a certain extent. If there are pertinent knowledge of future cost and/or benefit, then ignorance is that cataclysmic Trojan Horse. Perhaps in this case it is more accurate to say that ignorance is the quiet, “female-dog” sister of bliss.

And strangely, I’ve been having cyncial optimism concerning God’s provision. It might be easier to repeat “God will provide,” but my broken humanisitic hopes could easily warp how God should provide, therefore, it could be more accurate to say, “The God I envision will provide in the way I hope.” Of course God will provide; all provisions are from him. But I absolutely refuse to formulate the details of his provision. Who knows, I might go bankrupt, job-less, homeless, etc. Just because I trust in God does not mean I am impervious to financial crisis, societal injustice, psychological shock, etc. What I think trusting in God means is to be stubbornly confident that God loves me, however that looks like.