It's Good Friday! Have I learned to surrender all?

I have avoided writing this post today, not because I have been bad, but because I have been embarrassed.  God actually gave me a job interview a week and two days ago, and I haven't heard back since.  It was an amazing interview. There were prayers all around me. I was calm. I was competent. I didn't suffer from anomic aphasia, which often happens when I am nervous.

What are you telling me, God?! I was typing up this post when I got an email saying I did not get the position.  I literally stopped the previous paragraph to open the email.  I currently am deflated and have tears in my eyes.  I don't know whether to continue on with this post or stop.

I suppose I will go ahead and say what I know I have learned during this experience.

I have clarity. I know that I need a change. I know that I have to quit living in fear of change. I am going to have to step out of my comfort zone to make things happen.  I learned that people love me and think more highly of me than I think of myself. I learned I have an awesome network of friends and support I didn't know I had before.  I know that it behooves me to take daily, quiet moments to listen to myself and to God's still small voice.  I know I can hear it in art. I know I can pray through art. I know that things happen for a reason and sometimes you cannot see the big picture when you are in your little section of pixels. I know that our lives are much like a mandala, where if you look at it close up, you might not be able to see a pattern, but as you pull out and see the entire image, you can see the beauty in it. I pray that as the years go by and I zoom out of this moment, I will understand why sometimes change doesn't happen when you want it to.

Matthew 6:25-34

New International Version (NIV)

Do Not Worry

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.