Skydiving with God

Sadly it has been over two months since I promised everyone a final blog entry by the end of July. For those of you who do not know, I was at that time in a rather extreme state of flux, being homeless, jobless and computerless (yes, after I made the joke about an elephant crushing my computer my laptop actually crashed). Since then, the last few months has been an amazing struggle of trying to get on my feet and restore a bit of the normalcy that once used to be present in my life.

If anyone has ever sat down with me and had a discussion about faith, they would know that I always say that faith is like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. Most of the time in life we don't really rely on faith because either when we jump out of the plane God catches us instantly or because our plane was never really that far from the ground in the first place. Yet there are definite times in life where when you jump, you keep falling. Sometimes you fall a little bit; sometimes you fall a lot. Sometimes you might even be close to hitting bottom but the truth of the matter is that God will always be there to catch you; He will never let you hit the ground, no matter how close you get. Knowing this however doesn't always make the situation any less scary.

Well for me, this has been the characterization of the situation I have been in since returning from Africa. Having decided to return to LA, I came back with a limited amount of money, no job, and no place to live. Luckily God had provided me with a place to stay (my sister had just decided to move back to Los Angeles and graciously opened her apartment up to me) but obviously this was only temporary until I was able to find a job and get my own apartment. After calculating my expenses, I estimated that I had only a month and a half to find a job before I ran out of money and would be forced to return to Northern California. At first I figured that I would be able to find a job quickly but as days turned weeks and my account drained more and more, I began to panic that I would not be able to find a job in time. I had jumped out of an airplane without a parachute and almost a month and a half later I was still falling, with the ground zooming up faster and faster everyday. I needed a miracle fast.

Finally, two days before I was supposed to return to Northern California, I received a call about a possible job at UCLA. They thought I was good for the position and wanted to interview me. The problem was that because it was so last minute, I was only able to interview the next day. I figured that there was no way a business would want to scramble so last minute to interview someone. Luckily, I was dead wrong. My final day in Los Angeles I put on my best (and only) suit and walked onto UCLA for my job interview. After an hour long comfortable interview I was hired on the spot! God had caught me my last day in Los Angeles! I was staying! The next day I left Los Angeles to go on a family vacation to Thailand, knowing that when I returned, I would have a job waiting for me.

I have now been working at my job for one month and couldn't be happier. Last week I moved into a wonderful apartment in Culver City and celebrated by buying myself a pillow top full mattress that I found on craigslist. Though it seems like a small thing, I have been without a bed since I graduated in April, sleeping on couches, floors, and foam pads for almost six months. So to finally have a mattress after 6 months of not having my own place to lay my head is one of the biggest blessings I could have asked for. As I said, sometimes when you jump out of an airplane, God catches you right away. Other times, God allows you to full on skydive for a month in a half. But at the end of the day, if you are faithful, He will always catch you, whether it be with a brand new job, an apartment, or simply a pillow top mattress from craigslist.