Seeing God in it.
Back in March, I was entering my last trimester of pregnancy, and a long-time customer/client of mine was discontinuing our business relationship. I admit that at the time, I was growing weary of it myself. You see I had worked for this client since my first child was born, so about 15 years. This office was also 18 miles from home and it took a solid half hour or more to get out there, and then of course there was the return trip. I had done that with babies in car seats, and with toddlers. For a time I even filed the work I had transcribed for free on the weekends while my youngsters played tag in the empty waiting room. I had driven out there in the wee hours of the morning, or late in the evening. Every single weekend required at least one of those trips. On vacation it was the last place I hit on the way out of town to drop off work, and the first place I hit on the way back to pick up work. I braved snow storms and traffic and construction. I would drop a child off at swim practice and then use all of my driving skills to get out there and back in half an hour to pick up. It was just a part of my life.
It paid well too. I start out making about $100 per month, but by the end I was making closer to $800. Of course this was before gas skyrocketed!.
But I was growing weary of the drive. I was also growing weary of the office losing reports and having to be always accessible to their phone calls. I had to apologize profusely last fall when I was napping (first trimester exhaustion) and Calvin wouldn’t let a call come through because he was talking to a new girl on the phone! And there was always the question of did I lose a report? Did I not transcribe it? Was it lost? Or did it just not get dictated? I was growing tired of that too.
But I’m like a loyal terrier. I don’t leave a position just because I have a few problems with it. And God knows this.
So last spring I went from a great month, to a month where I made almost nothing, with no warning. I was still driving out twice a week, and there would be a report or two, but I was not even paying for gas expenses. I started to lose sleep over it. How would I pay my bills? How would I find another client? Would this pick up again? I was starting to lose hope and panic was setting in. And I would pray.
The next month a good friend of mine whom I had helped get started in medical transcription let me know about an opening as an independent contractor, and I started in April. It was a lot of work, and I wasn’t making as much, but I kept at it, trying to learn the account. By the time the baby was born, I felt pretty good about it, and was able to hit the keyboards again when I was about 2 weeks postpartum. In July, about 4 weeks postpartum, I picked up some vacation coverage work as well! Then last week I got offered a chance to pick up another client. And the bonus is no more long drives twice a week!
On top of that, last week we had a chance to consolidate some bills and lower payments.
What seemed like a deep depressing hole last spring, has sprung into opportunity and hope. I had to go through a bit of hard times to get there, but I really believe that God knew what he was doing – I just couldn’t see the big picture as I was going through it. And frankly without the incentive (the client dumping me) I wouldn’t have even tried to go through it!
This type of thing has happened to me before – a triumph after tragedy kind of thing. Like would I have my beautiful baby daughter today if Raphael had not passed on? I don’t know.
I do know I need to hit confession this week to confess my anxiety, my worry, and my lack of trust. And then I need to make an effort to thank God for all of my blessings – even the ones that I can’t see.
