Saturday, November 12, 2005 |
The closer it gets tho, the more sad I become. I am really going to miss working at Carpathia … especially working with our Romanian team. You cant imagine how much fun they are to work with. I may never have met them in person but I interact with them on a daily basis and they are all great people. Hopefully once I get my finances under control, I will be able to take a vacation to Romania and visit with them. I know that most of us will keep in touch but its not the same as being in the company channel during your whole shift and constantly talking to them and laughing about issues going on. They truly made my job fun! As for the on-site people, I have no hard feelings against any of them…. And I think they are all great people and to be honest, I think that they have really began to realize that many things need to change at Carpathia and it really looks like they are working towards those changes. It will be nice working for Equinix because I will still see them all since Carpathia is a customer of Equinix. It seems Carpathia has a bright future and in many ways I wish that I could stick around and see them through it, but it seems that there are other directions that I need to take. God will guide me through each one of those. One nice thing was I was told that they don’t want to see me without a job so they said that if I do not get settled in at a job before my notice expires, I can work as long as I want to keep a steady pay check coming. They all have really impressed me with the way they handled this situation. It’s hard to believe that in a week, I will no longer be an employee of Carpathia. I really hope that I have left a positive impact on the company and that they continue to grow and improve the way things are done. On a side note, unless I said this already, I did hear from Telos and they decided to hire someone internally. No issues there…. That wasn’t the door for me to take. Rackables still hasn’t called. I don’t know if that is even the job for me…. I have been volunteering with my church and I have noticed that the days I go to my church’s office, I feel better all day. No doubt God is leading me to some type of ministry…. I don’t know exactly where that is but as for now, I need to follow my life this way (working full time and volunteering on the side) until He tells me it’s time (if it ever will be) for full-time ministry. There are a lot of personal issues that I am dealing with right now that I’m sure God wants me to take care of before that is the case….. but I am so happy that God is still using me while I battle those issues. No matter how unrational decisions I need to make may seem, I know they are the ones that I have to take. Putting my notice in at Carpathia was a very big leap of faith, and it seems it is turning out well for me. I’ve been told about the Rackables thing and how some people felt that that job may be the one…. But I know that many of them think that because of the possibility of making $70k-$80k at it…. The time would be very consuming and I fear that it would interfere with what I am doing at New Life… and that just can’t happen. I was told that God opened the door so He would provide but I’m not necessarily sure that is the case. God has opened many doors in the last month…. Some closed for me and some I closed. In James 1 we see that we go through a lot of trials for our own edification…. God does test us…. And at the end of that test we are given more. Just because a door seems to be opening for $80k does not mean that I should take it. It only means that God wants to see where my heart really is at. Is it in the money or in serving Him? If I took that job, God may not condem me for it, but it would make things a lot rougher on me because that would mean the same scenario would happen again. God doesn’t let us fail… He lets us retake the test time and time again until we pass…. I prefer to pass on the first shot to avoid the hassels. I simply can not walk through a door because God opened it….. I’m not saying that Rackables could call me in the next hour and the job seems perfect and seems that I could work with the church and I would turn it down. Anything is possible…. But I simply can not let money be my guide. That is a struggle for me because I am coming out of financial struggles as well as all of those around me and it seems that many people I talk to have money as their motive….. It’s a hard thing to comprehend and I’m far from mastering it – but I know that I *MUST* follow God’s lead and not just pick my favorite door that He opened. My goal in life is not to make $100k and be this really wealthy guy. My goals in life are quite simple: First, I want to follow God and serve Him – Second, I want to be the best husband to whatever special girl God gives me and be the best father I can be to our children. Those will make me happy…. I am a servant and I want to remain one. I take great joy when I can sacrifice something to help someone else and I pray that I can continue to do that. This is truly an amazing time for me and I know that I am on the edge of being used by God in a great way…. I’m starting to feel that strong and stronger and to be quite honest, I’m feeling the attacks too. We all know that when God starts an amazing work, satan doesn’t like it and throws everything he has at us. I have been feeling those attacks very heavily recently. Today I was very discouraged and just wanted to give up on everything. I felt like I could not take any more…. But God is good and He brought me through it. I’ve been here before but I don’t think I’ve had as big of a chance of success as I do this time. I have some amazing people supporting me. I attend what I believe is the greatest church on the face of the earth. It’s me… its what I have been looking for and most importantly, I know it is where God wants me! I have always struggled with loneliness and many times I fear losing those who actually are close to me. In the last few nights I have had very real nightmares about some of my friends leaving me because of struggles that I have had and do have. But God has not given me a spirit of fear…. If those friends leave my life, it’s because God let it happen that way. Being able to interact with people is a very important thing for me and now that I actually have people I interact with that go to the same church, it is incredible. It’s the fellowship that I have needed for a very long time that I never did find. I pray that those friends stick by me through all that I am going through. I also pray that God would maybe bring back some of my old friends that meant so much to me. Its hard losing people that mean so much to you. Sometimes I think it’s harder than someone dying. If you lose a friend to death, you know that friend was your friend and loved you with all you had…. But when you lose touch with a friend and that person seems to not care anymore, its very hard because you cant believe that they ever did love you. I realize that I am as guilt of this as others….. and its something I need to work on and I will….. there are a lot of things I need to work on…. Someday, however, I will have my dreams come true…. I will have a beautiful family and I will be serving God in great ways…. I can pray that its next week, but I know the reality is that I need to wait for God’s timing. (C)2003-2008, Bob K Mertz - Some Rights Reserved |
