and if I perish...

Two weeks into my new job, I am still meeting residents who look at me with surprise.

"You're new.  What happened to the last woman? There has been so many!"

I love the ones who tell me, "No one in this position lasts very long.  How long do you intend to stay?"
Ok, so I replaced the last woman, who must have had the job less than three months.  The woman before her was temporary.  And ultimately, we are not employees of the building association; we are really employed by a contracted property management firm.  The nature of the thing is transitory.

I must admit, this was unnerving to me at first, me the girl who before my last job, had been employed no less then a decade at the last two places.  I am a Ruglio, truly--- and Ruglios hate change.  I was not looking for a temporary situation.  I don't want to keep changing jobs.

But isn't this whole life transitory?  I am just an alien anyway in a strange land, far from my real home.
Right now I am studying the book of Esther with Beth Moore.  Beth made the point that Esther trusted God with her difficult decision to go in to see the King.  She could have been killed.  She prayed and fasted, and then did what she had to do.  She knew there were no guarantees.  But that did not stop her.  Her testimony was: And if I perish, I perish.

Like Esther, I prayed and asked others to pray for me.  In the end, I did what God instructed me.  I talked to Him about my reservations, and He gave me no guarentees.  Only the promise of His love and His presence.

Two weeks in, I am more certain than ever that He has been guiding me.  I do not totally understand.  But I do believe.  I do trust Him.  No matter how this turns out.

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?  -- Romans 8:32