You see those fantastic people on LinkedIn – with fantastic groups of followers and fantastic networks, slick lists of experiences, training and education. I have a (only a small but yet) profile like that. It is a way to show where your strengths lie and what you have to offer the world.
It’s a strange world, though, and one that only shows a tiny part of the reality. Jelle, my husband, will soon be able to update his LinkedIn profile because he has a new job. We are glad.
What you don’t see, however, is what came before. The months of searching, hoping, scrolling through vacancy pages. Pray, wait, or perhaps take a different approach: buy a church with crowdfunding or move abroad because the entire country is uninterested in our qualities.
It causes tension in the house. We have a habit of not shouting at each other so as to keep our children out of our tensions. But the tension is there. In times of tension, your character is magnified. For us, this means Jelle calms down a bit and I take action and tackle all kinds of things. “Go to work on the ferry!” I told him. “What do I care?”
Actually, that is one of the professions on my hidden dream job list. – endlessly helping people across the water to the other side of one of the many rivers here in the Lowlands. I would chit-chat with the locals as I maneuvered the ferry across the river, through wind and rain, cold and heat, calm and storm– I would just keep going. I think it would suit me.
But it doesn’t suit Jelle. He is a big-picture person with a helicopter view, as a friend once put it. He sits there quietly in his old chair reading some scientific journal and I wonder desperately whether he has not absorbed enough knowledge to last him the rest of his life. He calmly says, “It’ll be fine. I know it.”
Unfortunately, I don’t have the faith and trust that he has. I also see that he sometimes loses courage and sits quietly in a corner, pondering. I’m angry about the wasted talent.
It reminds me of the story of Moses and Zipporah. After a wonderful start in Pharaoh’s palace, Moses ends up in the desert. He has a family and becomes a shepherd. Did Zipporah feel the way I did when that beautiful Moses of hers trudged along behind the sheep year after year? Only afterwards was it revealed that the interim had actually been a training session. But hey, hindsight is 20/20.
The whole situation made me angry, sad and tired. And I was very disappointed in myself. How is it possible that I become so obsessed with money here in the Netherlands? As a family, we lived in Eastern Europe for years and worked with Roma. All around us were people who had less than us. We sometimes worked with people who didn’t know where their evening meal would come from.
During that time, we lived on donations, which involved collaboration between an organization, a church and a group of family and friends who together provided our salary. That was a great exercise in faith and trust. Hadn’t that experience taught me anything?
There is also another side. Life is expensive and has become even more so in recent years. From my work at the Salvation Army, I know there is more hidden poverty than we think. So when the gnawing uncertainty about work and income started to concern me more and more, I knew we were not the only ones dealing with this
But those close to people who are struggling may only witness a very small part of all that tension, those tears and the questions.
I forgot to read Matthew 6. It is about God’s faithful care for the lilies in the field. If God takes such good care of the flowers, how much more will God take care of the people! Along the way my faith had taken a blow. The self-evidence of God’s good care was no longer so self-evident. I forgot to be encouraged by words that I could rely on in years past. Or had I forgotten to put the Kingdom of God first?
All I want to say to you who are in a similar situation:
Take care of yourself, and share your struggles confidently with a friend. If you cannot make ends meet financially or you are depressed or in mourning, you feel like you are carrying around a heavy stone. Your capacity drops below zero. Something you can normally do may feel like an impossible burden.
You are in survival mode. You respond late to things, miss things here and there, and it feels like you are lagging behind. This is not strange: You are working hard to keep your head above water in all areas, and that is hard work. Don’t struggle alone; after all, shared sorrow is halved sorrow. Have patience with yourself.
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Kind regards, Janneke (and Jelle)
