“I’ve got some difficult news. Your position has been eliminated.” Tension filled the cold conference room as my manager and a representative from Human Resources awaited my reaction. But all I could do was close my eyes. The company that had employed me for more than ten years—where I had worked my way into a high-paying position with great benefits—had just eliminated my job. Questions scrambled my thought. How would I pay my bills and my mortgage? How would my career recover? How would I ever find another company that needed my specialized talent, paid me as much, and gave me such good benefits?
In the following months, I scanned job postings daily but didn’t see any opportunities that matched my previous position. Fortunately, I received a good severance package, unemployment insurance, and a temporary summer job. But even though I lived a very thrifty lifestyle, the meager income from those sources was drying up quickly, and I watched my savings steadily being depleted. What concerned me most was my planned marriage to a woman with two daughters. Living a frugal lifestyle was possible as a bachelor, but supporting a wife and two young children without a good job was not an option. My sense of purpose wasn’t clear, either. Although I stayed busy with volunteer work, I was burdened by the feeling that my talents were not being used to their fullest. As the months passed, I was lulled into coasting along and not trying very hard to get my career back on track.
What I didn’t know at the time was that for the next several months I would learn that reality—that what is true about our life—is not based on what we see, hear, or feel with the human senses. While the human mind is always confusing itself by gathering information from these senses, clarity about our path and purpose unfolds and expands from spiritual sense—from what God tells us, and of our understanding of divine law.
