G had a face-to-face meeting with his boss today. Some of you might be thinking, "So, what's the big deal? Doesn't everyone have these kinds of meetings once a week or so?" Well, G doesn't -- mostly because he works from our home in the western suburbs of Chicago and his boss works from an office in Massachusetts.
When G told me that his boss wanted to have a meeting with him, I asked him when he would be flying to MA. I was really surprised when he said that he was going to meet R at a nearby restaurant at three o'clock this afternoon. Normally G sees his boss once, maybe twice per year, and he had already seen R about two months ago. So it was highly unusual for R to call up this morning and ask if they could get together this afternoon. Who knew that R was in the Chicago area? Not G, that's for sure.
Immediately my radar that seeks out trouble and disaster was on high alert. R claimed that he was in the area to visit some clients. Why wouldn't he ask G to go with him to make these customer calls? What did he really want to talk to about? What if he had come all this way to tell G to his face that he was fired? I really have a talent for jumping to the worst possible, unfounded conclusions.
G left for the meeting and he didn't come back for TWO AND A HALF HOURS. I'm sure you can imagine the thoughts that went through my mind during that time. Fortunately most of my thoughts were directed to God, in prayer. I told Him over and over that I trusted Him and I tried to remember other times when we had faced trials or uncertainty and He had seen us through. I thought of six friends whose husbands/boyfriend had lost their jobs. In the most extreme case it was three years before one of the men found a job, but in every situation, God was faithful to provide for their basic needs. If the worst was to happen, I was confident that God would provide for us as well.
Finally G came home and we talked about what his boss had to say. Thankfully he did not say, "You're fired." He didn't even say that G was on "double secret probation." They talked about some miscommunication that had occurred on both of their parts and how they needed to avoid that going forward. They talked about teamwork and team and individual goals. They talked about a lot of the things they should have talked about two months ago when R gave G a less than stellar performance review. Because of this meeting, G has a much better idea of what his boss expects from him and R has a better idea of how G approaches his work responsibilities and where his talents and passions best fit into the overall mission of the team.
In the end, it didn't take something as horrible as G losing his job for me to see how God is faithful to provide. As I've written this post, I have been struck at how God provided, even in the midst of G's meeting today. The Lord enabled G to calmly discuss an emotional and confrontational issue with his boss. He provided G with the humility to admit to instances where he could have done better and He provided G with the strength of his convictions to respectfully defend himself in instances where he was in the right as to the approach he had taken. Ultimately God provided G with the opportunity to address and resolve a medium-sized issue before it blew up into a super huge conflict.
God is good.
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