I received an email prayer request from a friend whose daughter lost her job. Tough times loom for her, but much of his request was that God would use this trauma to illuminate her need to trust Jesus Christ for her salvation.
I paused to pray for the woman and as I did I realized that my words illustrated my insulation from the truly dire circumstances of those who balance on the edge of fiscal viability.
Norman Jameson
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I prayed God would show the woman that while job loss is sudden, traumatic and brutal, she wasn’t going to be thrown into the street the next day; that her cupboards contained food so she wasn’t going to go hungry immediately; that no one stood outside her former employer’s building to repossess her car when she walked out the final time. Basically I was praying that God would show the woman job loss does not mean immediate devastation and she had time to catch her breath, pull her wits about her and evaluate her situation without panic.
Most people have resources upon which they can draw, accumulated over years, that provide a safety margin between the immediate panic of job loss and the more distant difficulty of having to decide if they need to downgrade their living situation, sell a car or move in with mom.
Then I realized how disconnected I truly am from the pain of poverty. This, despite my own “plunge to poverty” experience of just six weeks ago with North Carolina Woman’s Missionary Union when I gave up my identity with a group of others to “live on the streets” of Roanoke Rapids, N.C., and mingle with the homeless for 24 hours.
The simple fact is, when job loss occurs for them and maybe for my friend’s daughter, their cupboards already are bare. They don’t have a car to sell, and one missed rent payment puts them on the street. The majority of those living in poverty have a job, but the wage is so low and the mouths to feed are so many that any diversion from the stream of a steady paycheck instantly puts them all at risk.
Time contracts for the poor. There is no next year for investments to mature, waiting for dividends or a tax refund to provide a cash influx to get over the hump. There is barely a “tomorrow” to consider if a meal is not scrounged to get them through today.
The first news of a friend losing a job is like the fat, heavy raindrops you try to avoid if you’re caught outside. You change your course; pick up your pace, hold something over your head. But soon, the constant drizzle of job loss soaks you and you can’t get any wetter and you don’t notice the next drops falling on your already soaked skin and another friend losing a job is just another statistic lost in the noise of all the news.
But each job loss notification is its own deluge to the one getting the news. Remember that when you hear the bad news from another friend who is suddenly stroking for the surface to keep her head above water.
Don’t forget about them. Pray for their encouragement — and for a job.
Patty Shaver, whose graphics design job was eliminated even while her husband was looking for work, has developed a career preparation and search website that may be helpful to you: http://www.mycareervoyage.com.
Norman Jameson, former editor of North Carolina's Biblical Recorder, is a freelance writer.