Unemployed

Well, I think I should update any one still reading this... I am now unemployed and back to living life quite as I please. Unlike many people in this economy & time, I actually told the firm I was working for that I would only be committing temporarily, and try as they may to persuade me to stay, after working 5 months (to the day) for the firm, I did as I'd promised and packed up my stuff to leave.

Here's the thing. I am good at public accounting (here's me tooting my own horn..."TOOT!"). It comes easily, I enjoy the daily challenges of the job, I love the people I get to work with, and it pays really well. And I'm never going to go back to it unless God whacks me over the head and makes me. :) It is all of the above, and yet spending 60 hours a week determining whether other people are tracking their money correctly just does not bring me the same peace as I knew last year, trekking through Filipino villages to sing praises to the Lord, or as telling a Taiwanese high school girl about the freedom that comes in knowing Jesus Christ for the first time. Lately, I have been thinking a lot about how short life on earth is. About how I really only get one crack at it, I have no idea how long my shot at life will be, and I don't get to decide if I die tomorrow or 60 years from now. So what DO I get to decide? TODAY!

And that's why instead of auditing benefit plans this summer, I am going to make my third journey across the Pacific Ocean and lead summer camps in Hong Kong and then in China with my teammate from last year Dave and a bunch of other camp-types. Its why I'm trading in pay checks to work for free to mentor & support college-aged kids who are deciding to spend a summer pouring out their time, energy, and emotions to campers. Its why in the fall, I'm going to go to seminary and spend a few years finding out more about God and people in relation to Him. Do I know that I want to be a paster - I have NO IDEA if I can hack it. I only know that regardless of what lies on the other side, learning more about who God is and about how to communicate that to people through words & actions can only enrich this time I have on earth.

So...good bye public accounting, and all the securities and creature comforts it brought. This next month of unemployment will actually be harder for me than you might expect as I try to remind myself that my worth is not based on productivity. And I will be fighting daily to remind myself of all the reasons I am not crazy (or at least, certifiably crazy) to be giving up a secure, good-paying job in the height of an economic recession to listen and obey the command to not worry about tomorrow but to store up treasure in Heaven instead of on Earth.

Below: My life for the next month - in drawings.