I Wish God Sent (Notarized) Singing Telegrams

Mar 12, 2018 | Blog, Essays

My husband has a good job.  Well, good in the sense that it pays quite a bit of money.  But, as sometimes happens with more money, there is more sacrifice.  He has to work long hours and the work is difficult and the environment is pretty uncomfortable.

We didn’t foresee this job as a long term career he would eventually retire from.  We saw it as a temporary blessing that would help us not only keep a roof over our heads and food on the table, but also help us quickly reach a couple of financial goals that had been on the back burner of life for many, many years.  I could finally dare to dream of a kitchen that didn’t look like it had gone through some sort of apocalypse! (no, seriously, you should see this thing.)

So he stopped looking for other work and started reading a book on Saint Maximilian Kolbe.  I stopped seeing my husband so much and started putting every extra dime into savings. It was a season; it wasn’t forever.  

Apparently the season was a Missouri spring because it was practically over before it even started.

A company that rebuilds printing presses contacted him.  It was the kind of work he wanted to do and since Saint Maximilian Kolbe’s ministry was heavily involved in printing, he took it as a sign from his patron saint to interview with the company.

He interviewed and two days later the company sent him an offer.  It was an offer that we could live off of, but it would definitely involve tightening the budget back up to, once again, having very little wiggle room.  He would have daytime hours and the environment was clean and climate controlled and it was exactly the kind of work he wanted to do.

We sat down to discuss it, but i knew there was no dissuading him from taking the new job.  While we were having our “conversation,” he was typing up his resignation letter.

I saw my dream of a renovated kitchen go up in a poof of smoke, making it look much more like my current kitchen.

I started doing that thing Jesus gets so annoyed with in the Bible: asking God for signs.  I was hoping He’d clarify for me that this was indeed the path He wanted us to take.

The printing press coincidence was all well and good for someone who didn’t need much convincing like my husband, but for me,  it was evidentially a little light as a “sign from God.” Perhaps if it were a Polish company or if it were a company owned by Franciscan friars or even if it were a company called Kolbe Printing, it might have relieved my anxiety some.  I needed something more obvious and concrete.

I asked God to send me peace that He wanted my husband to take this job by sending me a sign such as a sale in my Etsy store.

A moment later I heard the cha-ching notification from my phone.  I checked it and sure enough, there was a sale.

“That was a weird coincidence,” I said to myself.

I continued praying and asked God to send me a very obvious sign such as a thunder clap.  A moment later the sky became dark and I heard the rumble of thunder. Truth be told, it shook the windows but I remembered that God flooded the Earth once; He knows how to do some real thunder if He wants to.

“Missouri is very prone to weird weather, that might not be Him,” I said to myself.

I continued in prayer asking God that the sign had to be more obvious; he knows I’m dense.  Let there be an unexpected knock at the door.

A moment later, there was the sound of knuckles wrapping against my front door.

Who the heck is that?  I thought, getting up to answer.  

It was the mailman.  “Well, that’s not unusual enough to be a sign,” I said to myself.  He handed me an envelope addressed to me marked “special delivery” and then continued walking onto the next house.

“I mean, if it had been anybody other than the mailman, I would have totally taken that as a sign,” I continued telling myself as I ripped open the letter.

There was a single piece of white paper inside, so white it hurt my eyes a little.  On it were the words, “This is the path I want your family to take. This is the job I want him to have.  Sincerely. I Am Who Am.”

I looked at the envelope again.  There was no return address.

“That’s weird,” I said to myself.  “Who could this be from and what does it mean?”

I put the paper on one of the many piles on my desk and went back to praying.

My husband’s start date happens to fall on Saint Joseph the Worker’s feast day and I keep praying and hoping that God will send me a sign that all will be well with this job change.  Perhaps I’ll just have to trust and have faith that this is His will, but it would be so much easier if He would just send a sign.

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