The Beauty of Silence

It's our final thirteen days in Orlando, Florida. Thirteen days. My head is still spinning when I think about this and I must admit that it hasn't fully sunken in that we are driving north to Nashville, Tennessee to restart life anew.

I can't count the times I thought that we would be stuck here - me in my job as a club concierge at a fancy hotel and K as a receptionist at an eye clinic - or how many times I gave up all hope of ever working in a job that would maximize all of my gifts and abilities; a job that would not feel like a job but would feel like a perfect fit, a glove of my former career.

It was well into my third month at the first hotel I worked at (which is the sister property of where I work now) that I plummeted to the depths of self-pity. There I was, in the first job I could get in the US (not counting my three week stint as a housekeeper) after looking for four months and sending out close to 100 resumes, busing tables, replenishing drinks, making gallons of coffee and preparing buffet presentations for high-paying hotel guests, every day. My fingers would sometimes get smeared with leftover food, my muscles would strain from lifting cases of soda and beer, my mind, seemingly slowed from lack of stimulation.

Of course there were days that I had to make difficult dinner reservations for large groups while giving directions to another theme park to another guest and reading babysitting rates for another. My radio career was good training for entertaining and talking people up!

But wallow in self-pity I did. Each day a divine act of grace to get to and from work with a smile on my face. Each day a wrestling match with my Maker.

"Father, how long is life going to be like this for us?"

"Did I make a mistake in coming to Orlando?"

"Where do we go? What do we do?"

My resumes kept going out and kept getting ignored.

Each day, silence. All I knew, all I sensed, was that God loved, that He was near and that someday, everything was going to be alright.

One day, I was promoted to supervisor at our sister hotel, which is where I work now, and then two months later, I suddenly wasn't. My glimmer of hope was just that.

So there I was, wallowing in self-pity, questioning my ability to hear God when facebook set me straight.

I wrote a quick note to one of my dear pastors, Rey Corpuz:

It's been a tough year readjusting to a country I left as a child of 12. Napakahirap po magsimula sa Amerika! (It's so hard to start life in America!) Not like people who come here on work visas who land jobs on their same career path, I'm seen as a local who lived overseas too long.

So I work at a hotel, the only place that would hire me! No complaints since I just got promoted to supervisor. I'm a club concierge and I love working with guests. (we serve food, buss tables and make restaurant reservations) But a part of me wonders if I will ever get to do what I did before - communications in the ministry.

Perhaps that is the Egypt I must leave behind? I don't know. But with each step of the way, I only thank God for even allowing me AND Kyera to have a job.

(She was hired on the spot when she got her eyes checked for glasses! She's the front desk person for a Christian Haitian optometrist, and she also knows how to measure eyesight with those contraptions!)

She's not in school yet because we haven't been able to afford it but we're believing that next year God will make it happen.

His reply left me in tears:

what a blessing to hear testimonies of His faithfulness to you and kyera. ms menchie and i are so proud of you both exercising God's gift of work. doing your work for God is real worship which i call 'workship'. both of you are 'communicating' the life of Christ in you to people around you. so you haven't left your communications ministry, you're just doing it there instead of manila with the partnership of kyera to boot. and about egypt? the real egypt is in the heart where discontent, murmuring, complaining and dissatisfaction reside. it is the heart that is not most satisfied in the God of creation, salvation and provision. come to think of it, leaving our egypt is not the issue at all; it is removing all of egypt from our heart.

And so I shut up, embraced the status quo, and became... still. No dreams other than wanting to please God, no requests other than having Him by my side, no comfort other than His Hand holding mine.

Suddenly, out of the blue, a message about a possible opening at the US office of my former employers, Every Nation Ministries. A visit, an interview, a job offer, an acceptance and then here and now, the final two weeks in Orlando.

I don't know what else to say. My fourteen months at the hotel has been a most beautifully grace-and mercy-filled season. God allowed for me to stay in a "dungeon" where I had unlimited access to free food; free movie tickets; free entrances to theme parks and concierge perks at expensive restaurants. In His infinite wisdom, He permitted me to work in a job that would show me how much I love people.

And yet every step of the way, I kept seeing what I did not have, friends and a career in communications.

So here I am, humbled, pinching myself that I am returning to the job I loved dearly, in an office I never thought I would be working for again.

We truly, never deserve the goodness He lavishes. Everything is icing on the cake of His Mercy.

"It was a dark and twisty blog..."

The one thing I enjoy about blogging is its therapeutic affect on me. Of course as I putter around cyberspace more and more and discover amazing finds in the blogosphere, I can't help but ask myself, "Why don't I do that with my blogs?"

You know what I mean? When I come across something that is short or funny or highly informative or downright provocative or truly uplifting or... I get the feeling that I'm not writing what I should be writing.

But then again, that's the joy that is blogging. I write for myself. Anyone who reads me and connects or resonates with me is a bonus. A bit selfish though it may seem, I blog because I want to. I need to. And if one day I actually do write a book, I'd like to think I've gotten enough practice from all this word-weaving. Hopefully by then, I will have collected earth-shaking life revelations that people will actually want to read!

One of my former bosses used to tease me at my first job that I wrote too seriously. Or rather took myself too seriously.

"Thelma, can you write a Press Release for me for one of my artists?" Arsi requested.

My attempt was greeted with: "Too flowery! Just stick to the facts! None of this, 'It was a bright and sunny day...' kind of writing, Thelma!"

Wounded, I returned to the drawing board. I got it right after three more attempts.

Here I am fourteen years later looking at my eclectic resume that includes having been published (a stranger copy/pasted my piece!) in a nationally circulated newspaper, the Philippine Star and in an online magazine. (Zuula rocks!)

But as I face the prospect of moving back to the US, I struggle with the possibility that not only will I have to start from scratch, I just might have to work at a Dean & Deluca or a Starbucks as a friendly neighborhood barista before landing in something I have either done in Manila or truly love doing.

In true me fashion, I would do that. Or anything else, for my child. Well, anything legal that is.

My current state of mind is the opposite of yesterday's dark and twisty blog.

Today, I choose faith. I make a conscious effort to look at the bright side by being thankful for at least three things.

• G3's wife and daughter have just been issued US visas!
• Mikey called me out of the blue because he misses me. *sniffle*
• Carol from Malaysia is going to New York to study at Berkeley College.

So yesterday was a bright and sunny day after all. I just couldn't see it.

Sometimes, all you really need to do is open your eyes. Or write a new post.


song playing on the networked itunes: signal fire by snow patrol