^“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.  For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.  So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” -James 1:2-4

So last week I talked about waiting on an answer/waiting out a storm.
I posted my blog entry last Sunday night, not knowing that I’d encounter a different kind of storm the next morning.
On the previous Friday, my boss said that her boss wanted to meet with me on Monday, but she didn’t have any details. In the newspaper business, when the editor wants to meet with you and the details are sketchy, you have every right to be concerned.
When I arrived at the appointed time, he hustled me down to Human Resources. I figured I knew what was coming. Profits in newspapers are shrinking like the waistlines on “The Biggest Loser.”
They were doing away with several full-time positions in the newsroom, and I was one of them. Fortunately, they offered me the option of resuming my part-time gig because they were happy with my work and still needed someone to cover schools.

One of the many cool stories I got to cover was on local beekeepers.

Part of me was sad that the side of my job going away was the magazine feature writing. But another part of me believed this was an answer to prayer.
We’ve been studying “Discerning the Voice of God: How to Recognize When God Speaks” by Priscilla Shirer in our Tuesday morning Northwood women’s group.
Priscilla’s 5 M’s of correctly hearing God are:

1. Look for the message of the Spirit
2. Live in the mode of prayer
3. Search out the model of Scripture
4. Submit to the ministry of Eli
5. Expect the mercy of confirmation

Priscilla asked us to write down in the back of our study guides “circumstances troubling me” at the moment. After a few really big ones I won’t mention here, I had listed “What to do with my writing.”

I’ve been feeling the call to write, but with all the time and energy I spent crafting these huge feature stories, I felt played out. On magazine deadline weeks, sitting down at the keyboard to do MORE writing was not appealing. I decided that I wouldn’t let my full-time job completely derail my other writing and made the New Year’s Resolution to post weekly on my blog. But I still wasn’t able to invest the kind of effort I’d really like to make.

I asked God to give me direction in how to proceed. Did he want me to focus more on the blog? If so, he was going to have to help me figure out what in my schedule would be replaced. Women, repeat after me: “I can’t do it all.” And if you try, you’re going to drive some folks crazy (like those closest to you, and maybe even the one in the mirror).

Not so coincidentally, I just read Lysa TerKeurst’s insightful book, “The Best Yes.” Every time we pick up a new commitment, we’ve got to put another one down.

When I was sitting there in H.R. hearing that my full-time gig was going away, I almost smiled. No, I wasn’t happy to be taking a major cut in pay. We are beyond blessed that we don’t require that extra income. We will just tighten our belts a bit. Not everyone is that fortunate. If you’ve read to this point (THANKS!), you can say a prayer for my colleagues who lost their jobs.

With the study on discerning God’s direction, I realized that the circumstances were providing confirmation (and more time) to pursue my own blogging and other writing.

After the better part of the week marveling at the Lord’s working in my life and (not gonna lie) still mourning a little that my big feature writing stint is coming to an end for now, I heard this song from our Praise Team on Sunday morning.

“All things are working for my good ’cause He’s intentional, never failing…”

Gotta love that God pursues us constantly to remind us of His never failing love.

“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.” – Romans 8:28