Arrrrgh..."god Has Given You A Job"

[Amethyst]

My stepmother said this on the phone to me tonight. I told her it was just superstition, that I worked hard for it. And she doesn't think that is pushing religion onto me. Um, excuse me? Of course it is, as frequently as she says things like that. It wouldn't be so bad if she just said it once, but she says things like that every time I see her.

 

I am sick and tired of people thinking like that! It was not magic, I got it with my own effort. It really, really belittles the effort that people go through to tell them things like that.

[Kurari]

Yeah, it does. I sympathise, I'm hearing this now alot myself. After months of frustrating job searching with NO returns, I have just been on one really successful job interview that I'm 99% certain that I'm going to be offered, and I was barely home an hour from that and I got called by another company that I was REALLY interested in for an interview tomorrow!

 

I'm starting to hear now "Oh, God is finally answering your prayers!" and "See! Miracles happen at this time of year!" and it's leaving a really sour taste in my mouth. Uh, no. I've been doing this, what, for six bloody months now? Where was god six months ago? Four months ago? When I was begging friends and family for help paying my rent? I'm not giving any of my credit to any god. This was a coincidence in timing and these people want me because I can make them see the effort I've put into everything.

 

So, a toast to you Amethyst, and having all YOUR hard work and dedication paying off! Congrats on the new job!

[ShackledNoMore]

Amethyst,

 

Congrats on your new job! (Thanks to YOUR efforts, I might add, which is pathetic that your stepmother didn't recognize.)

 

Your stepmother's line of thinking is all too common.

 

100 xians and 100 atheists with the same qualifications look for a job with the same level of effort. 90 of each will find one. Typically, the xians will attribute getting their new job to god.

 

Xians and non-xians get sick. Thanks to the natural course of disease, plus the efforts of doctors, some of them get better, some of them stay the same, and some of them get worse, in equal proportions. Most of the xians will attribute the improvements to god.

 

Now it seems that in her book, god's getting the credit of dropping a job in YOUR lap even though you are "lost" (in her mind) and godless. It would almost be funny if it wasn't sad.

[Lycorth]

Congrats, Amethyst!

 

I am hunting for a new job, too. Of course, I'm not praying about it, and I have two leads, one of which is at least 99% guarenteed to be mine. I wonder what the Jebus freaks would think about that?

 

Perhaps you ought to ask "well, what about all the other people who need jobs and pray and hope but never get them?" Of course, you know the can o' worms that would open, but it's clear that assuming Jebus had anything to do with it that he can hook anyone up. The mere presence of the unemployed contradicts that.

 

But good work, Amethyst, and congrats again!

[Amethyst]

Perhaps you ought to ask "well, what about all the other people who need jobs and pray and hope but never get them?" Of course, you know the can o' worms that would open, but it's clear that assuming Jebus had anything to do with it that he can hook anyone up. The mere presence of the unemployed contradicts that.

 

Oh, don't you know? They're just being lazy and collecting wellfare and/or unemployment. They're not applying themselves. That is the response I would get.

[godlessgrrl]

Dude. You got your job on your own merits - based on your skillset, plus your persistence in looking, plus your energy spent on the process, plus maybe - maybe - a small bit of luck. No deity involved, only your efforts, and a willingness on your employer's part to recognize your value as a potential employee and hire you.

 

I'm prepping for a job hunt even now, as I'm trying to piece my health back together. It ain't easy. When I finally feel better and finally have a job too, I'm sure as hell not going to give the credit to any imaginary skydaddy - the effort is MINE, so the success is mine. (As would be any failure.) Same thing applies to everybody, I think.

 

So yeah - kudos for the job! Woo!

[LosingMyReligion]

Just let it go in one ear and out the other. You got that job because you worked hard to get it. And no fictional man in the sky helped you either.

Now I realize the error of my ways. I've accomplished so much in my life, but I've always attributed it to "god's grace," when in actuality the power was inside of me. Sorta like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. She went to the Wizard to get home, but all along the way she had the power. She just had to believe in herself!

[Dave]

....I am sick and tired of people thinking like that! It was not magic, I got it with my own effort. It really, really belittles the effort that people go through to tell them things like that.

I would have said; "Then your god is an ass. I worked hard and that idiot god GAVE me this silly job yet gave Bill Gates a far better one."

[white_raven23]

Wanna bet she wouldn't have said shit if your new job was at an adult XXX store (god blessed you with dildos)? Or what about at a Planned Parenthood clinic

 

Oh no. Getting jobs like that would be your own sinful doing. Shame on you.

 

Congrats on the new job that YOU earned!

[Amethyst]

Also, perhaps I should ask her if her god also gave my Mormon project manager his job (at least, I think he's Mormon. I get a fundy religious vibe from him and he's from Utah, but he doesn't talk about his religion.) My stepmom is Catholic and thinks Mormons are a cult.

 

Yep, Pot-->Kettle-->black.

[Guest JP]

All God-talk aside, congratulations on your new job, Amethyst! I also got a new job...with a $3.50/hour pay raise! Woohoo!

[ThinkingForMyself]

When I was at church, people would talk like this all of the time. I'd hear stuff like "I didn't get an interview there. I guess God has plans for me to do something else.". Then there's "God got me a job at xyz.". I hate that kind of thinking. That type of mentality towards a job search is just laziness. You get a job by working hard, networking, and doing your research. An invisible friend in the sky doesn't just hand a job to you after months of shrugging it off.

 

Best of luck at your new job Amethyst. Now you need to work hard and get yourself a pay raise. Then go celebrate what your hard work has earned you.

[Amethyst]

All God-talk aside, congratulations on your new job, Amethyst! I also got a new job...with a $3.50/hour pay raise! Woohoo!

 

Congrats JP!

[AKR]

My stepmother said this on the phone to me tonight. I told her it was just superstition, that I worked hard for it. And she doesn't think that is pushing religion onto me. Um, excuse me? Of course it is, as frequently as she says things like that. It wouldn't be so bad if she just said it once, but she says things like that every time I see her.

 

I am sick and tired of people thinking like that! It was not magic, I got it with my own effort. It really, really belittles the effort that people go through to tell them things like that.

 

i got this same shit from my mom about something else. her relatives have always despised me, but over the past year and a half, they saw that i was actually a hard working, responsible person, and ended up allowing me to rent out a small A-frame they jointly own. my mom said, "oh, i know you won't believe this, but i really think god touched them and changes their minds."

 

yeah, mom, great. just f*cking ignore it being MY work, and give props to some imaginary being instead.

[R. S. Martin]

I truly believed it was by God's strength or guidance or whatever that I had the courage and all to apply to study at a university nine years ago. I have no high school education whatsoever, but I did have one college level diploma in creative writing. On the strength of that diploma I was accepted into the university on probation.

 

This might not seem so stupendous for many people but by doing this I was directly and intentionally and with full knowledge violating everything I had been taught. A woman like me who grew up and lived in a 20th century horse and buggy community in North America did not do this. Period.

 

I applied. I was accepted, and have been going ever since. With the end of my MA degree in sight a few months down the road, and my incentive to further studies lacking for the first time in my life, I am looking seriously at the job market.

But let's back up a bit. The very fact that I was able to pursue education was such a major item in and of itself that it was the biggest thing I had to grapple with when deciding whether or not there was sufficient evidence for God's existence.

 

There were other intellectual issues to grapple with but this was the biggest faith issue. I had to accept that I was strong enough and wise enough of my own self to take this stupendous step. I had to accept that it was my own self I was trusting when I believed I was depending on God's leading. This is truly frightening.

 

Had things not worked out, it would be much easier to think I was just doing things on my own strength and wit and wisdom. But I am successful beyond anything I could have imagined. I took totally illogical risks just because I was desperate and because everything except money worked out (I had enough to pay for the first course). Desperate situations call for desperate means but all the same...

Even though I did not believe in God with my brain, there was a very significant part of my being that did believe in God and in prayer--I was praying day and night; it was my natural response to new and unfamiliar situations. I had miraculous protection in two potentially life-threatening traffic accidents that first year after I was out of the OOM church. At least, so it appeared. I continued driving horse and buggy.

 

In one case I forgot to fasten the reins to the horse's bit before I set off for home after night class. I had as much control over my horse and buggy as a driver of a motor vehicle would have over a vehicle with the steering wheel disconnected. It was totally out of my control. The horse did not respond to voice commands at that point.

 

My horse took off for home across the empty parking lot at high speed, and around two left turns, one of which was through a red light. There was traffic at the intersection. Finally, after a mile or so, it slowed down to a walk so I was able to get off the buggy and fasten the reins. I got home safely, told my one sister--the one with whom I was living at the time, and went on in life.

 

The other time, my horse spooked because the operator of a snowplow did not have the decency to stop when my horse was acting up. In my experience, operators of large machinery stopped their machines when a horse-drawn vehicle was near-by. This one stopped only AFTER my horse was out of control.

 

I ended up on the pavement in front of a moving car, I was told. I was knocked out for a bit. The horse took its own way home, which was a left turn through a major intersection. The normal volume of bumper-to-bumper traffic on that highway was extra-ordinarily heavy that afternoon, I was told.

 

There was someone with a motor vehicle at the intersection who understood horses, so with his vehicle he guided my horse into the first farm lane and tied him up. (The chances of a horseman showing up on the scene was not that unusual, given the large horse and buggy community with all its apostates PLUS a racehorse track [not for Mennonite use] in the area.) Not a scratch was reported from any motorists, nor did my horse and buggy or harness sustain a scratch. I suffered a slight concussion and a broken rib or two.

 

My biggest struggle was accepting the fact that I had landed on the road in front of a moving car and did not get killed. Most of my life I'd wished I was dead. The most logical way to get killed is by getting into a traffic accident. Landing in front of a moving motor vehicle is pretty well guaranteed death or at least very serious injuries that would disable me from the horrible work I was forced to do. Not getting hit was unthinkable. Yet it happened. To me.

 

The disappointment is still enough to make me cry as I write this. If anything convinces humans that god exists, it's miraculous interventions like this. I "knew" then that I was not going to die anytime soon and that come what may, I had to expect to live for a long time to come.

 

Not much I could do about it--or at least so far I have refrained from doing what I could. My brain knows that the posibility for life to be okay when I graduate is reasonably high, but my heart cannot forget the horrors of the past.

 

My dream since childhood has been to be a teacher. However, teacher's college has not appeared at all attractive. In public schools the teacher has so little say; all she has is one or two classes. I had been dreaming all my life of teaching an eight-grade rural classroom. When the church switched to private schools in the mid-sixties I saw the real posibility of fulfilling my dream.

 

I waited for more than twenty years for the opportunity and finally realized that no one was going to hire me to teach their children. Five of my seven sisters were teachers at one time. They were all younger than me. I accepted the situation in true humility and submission. I have never been blamed by anyone for jealousy of my sisters--which I consider significant. But I was not rewarded by anyone, either--least of all God or the church. In fact, when the church found out what I was doing to help myself I got kicked out.

 

Anything good that ever came in my life was due to my own research and risk-taking, the most significant one being to leave all to go to school. A few hours ago I accepted a verbal contract from a fellow student to tutor her this winter. She will find a way to pay me for it, though money is not an issue at this particular point.

 

The big thing is the possibility that this will lead to real work. At the very least, it will give me experience and help me know whether or not I am suited for teaching college level students. This would be my choice but I am not sure that I would want a full-fledged teaching position as a course instructor. Maybe I can eventually get a position tutoring students like her.

 

Both she and I struggle with learning disabilities. However, it appears like I am strong in the area where she needs help--in writing good papers. Like me, she is an independent woman and is in school because she wants to be. We've seen enough of each other in the computer lab for students with disabilities to know we respect each other. It appears like the ideal practice job.

 

Did God give it to me? Some people say god is that within each of us that is the real Self. In that case, I suppose it is from god. I cannot help but realize that I personally put fifty years of hard work into arriving at this point.

 

Ever since I committed myself to finding happiness at all costs, I've been living life one step at a time with my nose to the wind. (Previously, I had obeyed my parents, and lived by tradition and the church's rules.) The one-step-at-a-time method with my-nose-to-the-wind has worked far, far better than trusting God ever did. Maybe I am stronger and wiser and more courageous than anyone--least of all myself--dreamed. Maybe all of us are. Good-bye God!

[R. S. Martin]

my mom said, "oh, i know you won't believe this, but i really think god touched them and changes their minds."

 

yeah, mom, great. just f*cking ignore it being MY work, and give props to some imaginary being instead.

 

You know it and we know it that this is YOUR work and that it was not handed to you on a silver platter by the Ruler of the Universe. Hold onto that no matter what happens.

[Amethyst]

Ruby, your story is very inspirational. Have you ever thought about writing a book?

[Onyx]

Ame, your sweat was yours. God's fake so he didn't give you anything. Congrats! Go get rich for yourself and me, please. Then celebrate with wine!