These are tough times for US workers. "Joblessness is right up there with war and terror as an ingredient contributing to the high national anxiety," Bob Herbert wrote in a New York Times op-ed column back in February. "A Crush Of Applicants," The New York Times, February 10, 2003, p. A27 . Now, months later, the war in Iraq is over. Fear of terrorism ebbs. But joblessness flows.
In April, a front-page story in The Christian Science Monitor profiled the fast-growing ranks of people who are not part of the workforce—the "long-term unemployed." "They are people so discouraged by the job search that they've just quit looking." Ron Scherer, "For unemployed, statistics tell only part of story," The Christian Science Monitor, April 30, 2003, p. 1 .
It makes you wonder if there's any reason for hope. Well, as I know from boxing with the foe of unemployment myself, there is. And the reason is that God, the divine Mother-Father of us all, has useful and rewarding activities for everyone to do. God has good in store for all people. It's a fact, an eternal law of the universe. One Old Testament prophet put it like this, "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end." Jer. 29:11. The key is to know it's true. I find that when I'm able to do this, everyday life gets better.
