In case of STARS

On January 19, I interviewed for a job at a commercial photography studio here in Monrovia.  

The position?  Marketing and Operations Coordinator.  

And what is that, you ask?  Well, it’s a real person’s job.  It’s half marketing and half running the studio on a day-to-day basis.  It’s something that involves business cards and travel and interactions with other real people.  In short, it’s a job for which I wasn’t remotely qualified.  I couldn’t imagine why they’d called me in for it and I didn’t feel like I interviewed very well.  But, surprisingly, they called me in for a second interview that Friday.

On January 26, they offered me the job.  I took it.

And I’ve been running to catch up ever since. 

Full-time work means that I can pay my bills.  It means food in the cupboard, savings in the bank, student loans dwindling month by month.  It means that I can settle into a routine, work during the day, come home, and write on my screenplay, industriously pursuing what I really want to be.  It means that I can put “Marketing and Operations Coordinator” on my resume and go from here anywhere that I want. 

And if that were all, it would be more than enough.

But, in this case, it also means that I can walk to work.  It means that I have the freedom to do my job independently, listening to music, without a hard ass boss breathing down my neck.  It means that I can take long lunches in the sunshine as long as I get my work done.  It means measurable progress, feeling fulfilled as I watch the company grow, and strategizing for myself a plan to make it grow even further.  It means that I get to spend my time with a crazy Bulgarian, a wonderful man that makes me laugh, a man that is thrilled to let me take vacations.

It means I get to go to Australia to see Michael.

Oh, life! 

And it’s not perfect; nothing is perfect.  Some days will be hard and I’ll come home tired or unhappy or both.  And this job won’t make me rich. 

But it will sustain me.  It’s a gift from God, after EIGHT INTERMINABLE MONTHS of silence, of scrambling around in the dark without coins enough even to buy a cup of coffee.  I feel stunned and smitten by this new chapter in my book.  I don’t – can’t – understand God’s overflowing blessings, the immeasurable grace that has followed me so long.

When I wake up now in the mornings, I have somewhere to go.  I have something to do.  I have someone to be.

God help me, I’m seeing stars.