What has God taught you

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Anglewannabe

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I have often heard that God does not give you more than you can handle and that He uses trials to purify us and makes us more holy Well…… this is not my first struggle with being unemployed for a year and honestly, I do NOT see what on earth He is helping me learn.

The only things I now know beyond a shadow of a doubt is people can be insensitive and sometimes cruel to the unemployed and the workforce can stab you in the back at anytime. Although, I will now be quicker to pray for the unemployed (if ever I get a job again) but I would be the worse person to come to for advice. I can’t help but feel I suffered SO MUCH alone and no one was there for me, I do not have anything to give back and I am totally exhausted by the process.

After my last period of unemployment I worked over 7 consecutive years and I had the wounds of being unemployed fresh at the surface and could NOT help people who weren’t working.

That is not to say I am selfish. I help a LOT of people in other ways

So, I would appreciate if people could share massive struggles when they actually did see what God was teaching them

Angie
 
I don’t know why people say that God does not give us more than we can handle. I think He does, and it’s difficult because it’s such a stretching. I am very sorry for the difficulties in your life. Only know that everyone has a cross to bear and even if life looks great for someone, it can turn around in a moment. As it can for good as well.

You probably are already, but please offer your suffering for the conversion of sinners and peace in this world as our Blessed Mother asked at Fatima. By your sufferings and mine, we can draw down graces upon this poor world. It will be a joy we will have for eternity when we are shown what God has done with it. Like the boy with the few loaves and fish, who handed the little he had and through God’s kindness fed the 5 thousand, not counting women and children.

May God bless and keep you close to His Heart.
 
Hi Angie, God has carried me so far away from everything I loved, my family, my friends disappeared, my job, my home, my health, my hobbies, the graves of those I’ve loved. He took me to a place of loneliness where I learned how to pray.He taught me peace.
May God be with you on your journey

“The man who fears to be alone will never be anything but lonely, no matter how much he may surround himself with people. But the man who learns, in solitude and recollection, to be at peace with his own loneliness, and to prefer it’s reality to the illusion of merely natural companionship, comes to know the invisible companionship of God.”
Thomas Merton
 
I have had some really massive struggles, too many to go into here. I’ll try to make it short and sweet. My husband and I lost the beautiful home that we had built 6 months after we finished it. It forced us to move to another province, which turned out to be the best for our family. In this new place we have more stable employment, our children have more opportunity here than they ever would have in that other place. My son developed R. arthritis, which has all but gone into remission because the climate type here is so dry and it wasn’t back there, it was very humid.
I did not see any of the benefits of this when we lost our jobs and lost our dream home, but as they say hind sight is 20-20. Sometime you won’t realize it at the time, but as time progresses you will see. The one thing I have learned is that we don’t always have what we want, but we get what we need and God really does do things on His own time, not ours and it is always for the best. Have patients and keep the faith.
Good luck to you.
 
This is a difficult one. And while I know that this may sound cheap and patronizing, my heart does go out to you. I am deeply moved. Perhaps too often I hear this account and it wears me out, it also strikes me with worry. I know that hardship, poverty and tragedy can strike me anytime.
If there is anything that I believe (and somehow, yes, God has taught me) it is His presence. Presence in the Eucharist, presence in other people, presence in me, a presence around me, a presence in my pain and hurt.
Not too long ago, I watched a documentary that showed footages of the extreme famine and hordes of children and families starving to death (1970s-80s) Skin and bones, bulging eyes, swarms of flies, just lying there on the ground literally naked to the elements… It is extremely difficult for me to reconcile a life of happiness in the face of such incredible suffering, that here is the handiwork of a powerful loving God.
Still, I believe he is present. There is some inspiration, there is an experience, even if only a glimmer, of God’s loving presence.
 
Hi Angie, I’m so sorry for your struggles in trying to find employment. It is often said that when God feels that he is far away he is often the closest–though at the time it may not feel this way. Struggles will come and go throughout your life and it’s how we deal with them that can make the difference.

Sometimes I feel that life is just one big lesson but the struggles we endure can make us stronger. God has taught me many of these lessons throughout my life and the biggest of all is how short this life is and how we have to make each day count. Through the struggles I have learnt patience in accepting myself and others. I have learnt to love, not only my family but members of society who are unloved or misunderstood. I have learnt to forgive others as well as myself. I have come to accept situations that I cannot change. I have also learnt not to give up hope and to fight when I have to.I have found God amongst the struggles and know he is always close by, I can see how much good can come from bad situations.

The struggle I face at the moment is watching my once strong and independent mother slowly fade away with dementia, and my elderly father struggle with the loss of his wife.
To be able to care for them both as well as the needs of my own family, to be there for everyone. Strange as it may seem amongst this sorrow and great loss comes a great joy of being able to give back, denying oneself, acceptance of the situation, but still fighting to be a voice for my parents. No doubt this situation is very different from what you are going through–prayer can give us many answers to our problems, it is our consolation and our strength, he is with you in the midst of it all.
 
I haven’t worked since Oct. 1994. I’ve been on disability since 1995. It hasn’t been easy, especially since I spent over a year on a mental ward during that time. I’ve been out (of the hospital) since Dec. 1995, having gotten SSD earlier that year and finding a place through public housing. This still bothers me a great deal. I’d rather be working and contributing to society. As it is, most days I feel like I’m all take, take, take. But I’m trying to trust that God has plans for me. Like, being able to reach out to others. Maybe not to others in similar situations, but to people who don’t understand my situation. I am on disability not because of something I did. It’s not like I went out and injured myself to the point of not being able to work. And, yes, mental illness can be a big disability. And one can’t just “snap out of it.”

It takes a lot to find a job these days. Especially one that pays the bills. My last job didn’t do that, despite working full time. In fact, I usually worked a bit of overtime, but since the company didn’t pay overtime, I didn’t get credit for it. I was a single parent and just plain not making enough to support the two of us. Heck, I doubt that I could have supported just me. But I am where I am now, and I need to learn to be content and trust God. Being content basically means, to me, that I accept God’s will for my life and that I’ll wait for his guidance to where he wants me to go to next.
 
I’m not unemployed, but I have been quite sick for quite some time. Everyone would tell me that when you’re suffering, you’re closer to God. Well, I was saying to a friend the other day that why is it that when I’m supposedly closer to God, He seems so far far away? Well, it’s because I had started focusing on me, me, me again and lost my focus on Him. It’s hard. I’m not saying that I’m good at it. But once I realized that that’s how I felt far from him.

What are you learning? For one, you said it yourself, more compassion for the unemployed. then there’s the underemployed who just can’t get ahead and you’ve walked that road too.

Prayers and hugs.
 
God gives us more than we can handle by ourselves. We need to turn to Him for help and guidance. I am going through an awful time in my life and could not get through it without God.

God has taught me many things over the last couple of years. One that money is not important. That helping people is where I belong. I am a natural at taking care of the sick and mentally ill. And humility. My ego is taking a bashing every day. I have never in my life worked so hard, been so abused and earned so little money. Both work and my home are war zones. But somehow I get through day. I still have hope for the future. I think God just feels I have a few more lessons to learn.
 
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