I am pretty much like pasta cooking.

Another water? Yes. Another water.

Serving tables at Bob Evans Family Restaurant in Sun City Center meant serving a lot of elderly folks water. Exciting, right? lol When my sister mentioned to me that Ford Credit was hiring, I weighed the options and quickly called Aerotek. It was a no brainer. 

It was funny really because some of the candidates for the position were promised that upon getting hired they would be making "courtesy calls" to customers who were late on payment. Funny. 

However, my recruiter was painfully honest with me. This was collections. The woman who once was a girl who hated fundraisers was now going to be demanding payments. Laughable. 

Long story short. I was hired, and did pretty okay at work. Fast forward 4 years later, and I'm respectfully going toe to toe with operational managers and winning; sending repo men everywhere and anywhere to secure our collateral and well...winning (for the most part). I was not the best, but I did what I thought I could not do. I got the job done and met some amazing friends along the way.

Let's hit the fast forward button one more time past moving to Melbourne then to Palm Bay, getting married, and the couple of crazy jobs that I have found and left here. Let's forward to today. I'm painfully wonderfully unemployed. Things that used to make sense like 2 gym memberships, absurd car payments, and $100 cell phone bills seem pretty insane to me now. I'm learning how to become undone and unplugged. Humbling.

It dawned on me just a couple of days ago, that this is a God thing. It is indeed a God thing that I'm not getting call backs or interviews at this time. It is indeed a God thing that I am at home right now. There is a reason and there is a purpose. It does not mean that I need to stop job searching, but it does mean that I should embrace this season and trust God to do His job. He has never let me down, and He is not going to start now. He is bringing me through yet another process.

Process. That is a good word. It's a word that has been on mind for the last couple of weeks. Having the time that I have nowadays, I have started making homemade hand cut pasta on occasion. I used this recipe here except I substituted whole wheat flour and added a little bit more water. Amazing. The process is slow and tedious. My arms are literally sore at the end of this experience. It may take me 2-3 hours to make the pasta, but the end result is worthy. The end result is art. I find myself unable to eat a heaping bowl of the pasta because there is a sense of satisfaction and a sense of savoring every bite. I suppose that it's a sense of appreciation for all the work out into the meal.  

There is something beautiful about the process of cooking; something that is being threatened by society's my fast food mentality. It is about food, but it is also about life. As much as I would love to be able to push the fast forward button right now, I can't. It is the process that makes the end result art.

My life is being hand cut in a way to satisfy His purpose and His will. I do not always enjoy the process, but I am learning to embrace it. It is indeed a beautiful thing, a God thing. 

Ecclesiastes 3:11-13

Amplified Bible (AMP)

¹¹He has made everything beautiful in its time. He also has planted eternity in men's hearts and minds [a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun but God alone can satisfy], yet so that men cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
    ¹²I know that there is nothing better for them than to be glad and to get and do good as long as they live;
    ¹³And also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor--it is the gift of God.