Sometimes things don’t turn out the way you expect them to

That title is pure poetry, baby. Here we go for another late nighter. The fact is I’m waiting for my meds to kick in so I can actually sleep. So, while I’m waiting, I’ll just write…

Six months ago, I was graduating with a liberal arts degree and scared to death that I wasn’t going to be able to find a job during the year I planned to take off from school. Then—as I detailed in an earlier post—I scored a paid internship doing exactly the kind of work I wanted to do. At the time, I considered myself extremely lucky to have gotten anything at all. Now? I consider myself extremely and deliberately blessed.

About a month after my internship began, I was introduced to a certain someone at the library who was the newest flex. (Explanation: a “flex” is short for “flexible assistant librarian.” Flexible, because they are asked to work anywhere in the library, as needed.) “Hi,” is what I said. “Wait a minute!” is what I thought. “I was told the library wasn’t hiring?” I thought further. “What gives?” I spent about a day and a half feeling very bitter. I’d wanted the job. I needed the job…why hadn’t they even told me about the job?

Then, it dawned on me that I was getting better hours and a wider variety of work as an intern than I would have as a flex. And while the position was temporary (a definite drawback) the experience I was gaining was way more important to my future career than the imminent termination of my internship.

Fast forward five and a half months to today. I turned in an application Monday for a flex position that just barely opened. Today, the library director’s secretary called me to set up an interview for Monday morning. I have every intention of getting this job, and furthermore…I think I will. And furthermore, how nice it is for the library to be able to hire someone who has already been trained in so many different areas of the library on someone else’s dime! There are so many reasons why everything has worked out perfectly…but I won’t name them here. It doesn’t matter. The point is, it worked out better than I could have planned. Much better! Things were hairy for a while. I spent many days and weeks pre-internship very insecure about my future. I’ve spent many weeks within the internship worrying.

But everything worked out. Everything is in the process of working out. I tend to worry and fret myself into a frenzy about things I have no control over. And then when these things work out, I end up re-learning a lesson I wish I’d just remember once and for all: Don’t panic. I am a firm believer that God is in the details of my life. It’s not superstition; I feel it. It must be programmed into my DNA to think that things will turn out best my way, but I’m learning to ignore that impulse, or at least take it for what it’s worth.

There are people in my family who didn’t get their job today—and who needed one so, so much more than I do. I am nobody to offer up my experiences as any kind of testimonial… but how can I not say, unequivocally, that when we have done all we can do, everything will be alright? How can I stay silent when so many things in my own life over the years—too many disappointments, heartaches, and horrible troubles—have over and over again resolved themselves into poignant and meaningful triumphs?

Sometimes things don't turn out the way you expect them to. But they do turn out.

(Okay. I think I can sleep now. Yes.)