Leaving My Job

But you, Sovereign Lord, help me for your name’s sake; out of the goodness of your love, deliver me. For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me.

—Psalm 109:21–22

I left my job at the church. Looking back, I see more clearly what had gone bad without my realizing it, what I added to an already difficult situation. I tried and tried to make something work that had stopped working a long time before.

People leave jobs all the time. It stings, and you get over it and move on and find a new place to work. Jobs are things you do, they’re not badges of who you are, they’re not as important as your family or your soul.

I know those things, but when I left my job, I lost that sense that I was okay, that I would be okay again. I was sad, scared, and ashamed. One of my deepest secret beliefs is that I am not a good person, not talented or helpful in any way, and someday everyone will find out. This felt like confirmation of those feelings.

Without intending to, I had shoved way too much of myself into my job, more than a job can possibly bear, and I set myself up to fall a terrible distance, if something ever happened to that job. And then, of course, it did.