I'm a web developer!

I'm a real person now. I get up in the morning and go to work! Last Monday at 3:30 I called up some dude named Bob Lee and said "tell me where to sign" and he said "sweet" and I started working for Salem Web Network (SWN) on a Tuesday. SWN is basically the web division for Salem Communications (SC). SC owns and operates a bunch of Christian radio stations. They have also acquired smaller organizations, such as oneplace.com and crosswalk.com.

What do I get to do? Help design the websites. My title is "web developer" which is kind of fun. I did some web design in college and really enjoyed it. This is week 2, and so far I am liking it. It's quite different from my last job with Genworth. Different I think in a good way. Not to bash Genworth, but it just wasn't my thing, and that's ok.

So yeah, that's the news! I'll try and post some more stuff up on this hog. Lately I've had a bunch of thoughts coming out of nowhere, and several moments of "I need to write this down!" I'll try and get on that :-P

Thank you SO much to everyone for supporting me in the job search. You rock, and I appreciate your prayers and encouragement.

Head Exploding

Let me keep this whole thing in perspective...

- I've been looking for a job since really the beginning of January
- I posted my resume on Monster.com about 2 weeks ago
- Next day, I received 5 calls
- This week, I received 2 offers from places here in Richmond

With that being said, this is an answer to prayer. I have been asking for God to provide me with a job that I would enjoy. The latter part is yet to be determined, but I can bank on God's goodness for that. I heard a sermon recently talk about the Fall. I am realizing that this next gig is probably not going to be easy. It will (hopefully) be more enjoyable, at least more so than my last job, but it's probably going to be hard. And that's how it's supposed to be. After Adam and Eve screwed up, God said: "By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food" (Gen. 3:19). Work is gonna be hard, no matter what you're doing, and that's cool. But I do still believe it can be something you like to do.

So the decision is, what job should I take? Between the 2 offers here in Richmond, I know which one I'd take. However, I had an interview yesterday morning for a position as web developer for the Lynchburg City Schools. The dude after me said he had started his own web development company 5 years ago and has been doing it ever since. Pretty good competition ;-) So the decision then is, do I take this job in Richmond which looks sweet, or do I say no and hold out for the potential of another job in Lynchburg with some really good competition?

When thinking about this whole thing I felt like my head was going to explode last night. Like it was going to spontaneously combust. I'm not always the best at making decisions. I'll analyze every possible situation and consequence and then analyze it again. Then again just to be sure. Then I'll ask 45 different people about it. Meanwhile God is saying the whole time, "Ian... anytime you want to talk about this, I'm right here."

Yup - venting. I'll post another blog w/in the next week or so with what I decide. Thanks to my audience for reading my thoughts :-)

The few perks to suffering

It's getting late on a Sunday night, but I have a few thoughts running around in my head that I need to get out. So here they go.

For those of you who do not know, I have been looking for a job since December 16, 2005. This time of my life is right up there with Not-So-Fun-Fall-of-2001 (NSFF01). I can call it suffering because it feels like suffering. Although there have been times of hope, there have also been times of desperation.

Despite this fog that I am in, I have noticed some good things come out of this. Let me do the best I can with articulating these inarticulate thoughts of mine:

• Relating to others. After NSFF01, it's like I developed this sense to pick up on depression from others. Give me a few minutes of interacting with someone, and I can tell whether or not they are battling depression and/or anxiety. When you go through it, you know all of the ways to deceive others, and they no longer work on you. It's almost like you join this club and you can tell who the other members are. A few years ago a buddy of mine approached me and said he wanted to talk about depression. We had lunch and talked about life. He came to me because he knew I had gone through it. We deal with crap so that we can help others deal with it, too.
• Intimacy. Although it can be sporadic, I have never been so intimate with God as I am now. Several times I have come to a point where I can no longer contain all of these thoughts and worries in my mind, and they come gushing out in the form of tears. All I can do is weep in front of God. It's my way of saying, "this is me, God. This is my brokenness. This is my desparation." I DIG those times. It's like I can't keep this facade up, that I have everything together, and He finally gets a chance to slowly heal my heart. The best part is the immediate feeling afterwards. I physically feel lighter, like this heavy burden has been lifted from me. It becomes this realization that we are not meant to handle everything on our own. We need God's help. Otherwise, we drown.
• Humility. I tend to play it off like I know what I'm doing with this thing called life. How many times do we respond with "I'm good" to the question, "how are you?" Even if we have a horrible day, we don't want to make a big deal out of it, so we say we are doing "fine." I hate this! I hate this but I do it so often. Being in this rut has forced me to be more real with others. It's OK to have a horrible day. It's OK to be doubting God's goodness. It's OK and straight up NORMAL to not be ok. I have had some of the best conversations with close friends of mine lately. This has been a perfect opportunity to share my life with others, the good, bad, and the ugly. We're designed for community, and we can only get so far with people unless we give up this need to have it all together.
  
• Growth. Although I am still in the midst of this season of uncertainty and confusion, I look forward to coming out of this knowing God more and knowing myself more than I ever have. I look forward to saying things like "this one time really SUCKED because I didn't have this, but then God gave me THIS instead because He knew it was better for me in the first place," or, "I'm going to trust God with this because I've had to trust Him in the past, and He likes to pull through."
  

I hope this all makes sense and I hope it doesn't come as a shock to anyone. I was definitely holding off on any blogging for a few months now. I didn't want people to know that I don't know what the heck I'm doing w/ my life right now. Well... I don't! ;-)