God Laughs

My favorite movie of all time is It’s a Wonderful Life, and one of my favorite scenes from the movie is when George Bailey is sitting in a bar, distressed over the five thousand dollars that has gone missing from his business, and prays for some help. Immediately after he finishes praying, a man punches him in the mouth. When his guardian angel asks about his fat lip, he says, “This is what I get for praying.” I have felt like George Bailey many times in my life.

One of the concerns that has weighed most heavily on my mind since moving out to Boston has been finding employment. I have been living off of school loans, and while I’m grateful that I have that means to support myself right now, I can’t help but think with every dollar that I spend that I’ll have to pay for it again, with interest. I’m not used to not working, and it made me very uncomfortable.

I had been applying for jobs, but with the job market the way it is, I wasn’t getting many responses. I was qualified for these jobs, but people who were far more qualified were getting them. I was starting to think that I’d have to take anything, even waiter jobs--which I swore I would never do again--in order to survive.

I made my job search the focus of my prayers when I went to the temple about a month ago. With the reverence and comfort I feel in the temple, it is far easier to focus my payers and really communicate with God, and when I left, I felt like I had made my case sufficiently clear. I had had a phone interview for a job earlier that week, and as I drove home, I wasn’t expecting to get a call that very day saying I’d gotten the job, but I also wasn’t expecting to have an email telling me I hadn’t got the job waiting for me either. As you can probably guess, the latter is exactly what happened. I looked up into the heavens and sighed, “So, this is what I get for praying.”

I think that God likes to laugh at our shortsightedness, much like a parent may laugh when their child bites off more than he can chew. But since God is a perfect parent, He doesn’t just laugh for His own amusement, He laughs to help us see with a wider vision. The punch to the mouth wasn’t the answer to George Bailey’s prayer (I know I’m using a fictionalized story to illustrate my point, but I think it works). Everything that comes after that is the answer to his prayer, and even then, not all of it is pleasant--if you don’t know what happens, I suggest you see the movie at your earliest convenience. Likewise, that email wasn’t the answer to my prayer, that wouldn’t come until later.

That very afternoon, I got another email in my inbox. This one was from a fellow ward member and she was letting the members of the ward know about a job opening where she works. The job was advertised as a “great way to get into publishing.” Since that is exactly what I want to get into, I jumped at the possibility. Even at this point I didn’t want to assume that this was the answer to my prayer because there was no guarantee that I would get the job. I calmed myself and took it all one step at a time, trying not to assume that I knew what God’s purpose was until He decided to make it known.

To make a long story short, I know work at Boston Common Press, publisher of Cook’s Illustrated, Cook’s Country, and various cookbooks, as the office manager. I’ll be making enough money to cover my expenses, and I have the possibility of moving into the editorial side of things. Now God is probably laughing that I even wanted a job right now. My schedule is as full as it has ever been and I will be running myself ragged until the end of this semester, but I’ll laugh along with Him. I know that the business won’t laugh forever, that it’s a means to an end. And I know that with His help, I’ll reach the end I’m working toward.