I came into church on the 10th of May feeling deeply distraught, the overwhelming sense being that all was not well. Two main issues drove the sense of disjunction I felt; uncertainties around work and an inner turmoil around a decision in my personal life I had wrestled with for nearly a year.
The message on the day was by Rev Charles Achonwa - one of the first things he said being about surrendering to grace. This spoke directly to where I was at the moment, as I had taken time off a month before to come up with what I felt was the perfect plan with multiple backups and redundancies but had made little progress which fed the sense of frustration I felt.
A couple of days later, at the morning prayers in church, an opportunity came up to reiterate those two issues again, which I took. Two weeks later, I was called in to an informal conversation with my team leader at work and asked if I’d consider a new role within the team. That set off a number of things involving board approval, an interview and then a job offer. Visas and the associated paperwork were sorted out with little input from me, besides showing up to Glasgow for the immigration interview.
To the glory of God, I started in the new role just over a month ago today. Interestingly, I have had my job title changed three times; each with my remit expanded (but not a lot more money though!)
Reflecting on how what has been a difficult year has panned out, I was reminded of how in the most optimistic of plans I’d built, my current role was one I aspired to in the 2019 timeframe. Thanks to surrendering to Grace, that timeline has been cut significantly.
There are still a few deeply emotive issues I am trusting God about, but the sense is one of greater clarity and peace; that the closed doors I tried hard to break down by own strength and scheming earlier in the year are all part of his bigger plan.:)