Waiting for T-Shirt Day

written by Deborah Oakley

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During the summer of 2012, my brother and his family prepared to leave Korea and return home to the States.  He was to be stationed in San Antonio, TX.  They’d be leaving in October; the teaching contract I had at the time was finished January 2013.  We talked and prayed about it, and decided it was time for me to return home, too.  Once I finished my contract, I’d join him and his family in Texas.  I’m certain we made the right decision.  After I decided I wouldn’t be renewing my contract, I learned the school I was at had lost funding for a foreign English teacher, and they wouldn’t have an opening the following year.  For me, it was confirmation of my decision.

Keep in mind – at the time, I thought I’d left the wilderness and entered the Promised Land when I headed to Korea.  I expected a new, exciting thing to open up for me when I got back to the States.  Instead, I got more desert time.  Six years, so far.

It’s been a really difficult season.  The only jobs I’ve been able to find are retail jobs.  I’m not saying retail is bad.  God designed us all differently.  Some people enjoy it.  Not me.  For me, it’s been horrid.  I like puzzles to solve and things to develop, and I find retail work to be mind-numbing monotony.  Some folks like to do their job and leave it when they go home.  I like having a mission that I can throw all I am into.  In a nutshell, I’ve hated it.

I did have 18 months of fun.  I managed the thrift store for the senior citizens’ center in town.  I took the job because I figured the hours would be better than the convenience store work I’d been stuck in.  I was surprised to find it was a lot of fun.  I got to manage people, learn a bit about e-marketing, work with the foundation on fundraisers, and I also did their IT work (keeping the computers and network running).

When I got there, the store was a mess, and the staff and volunteers were disillusioned and grumpy.  We reorganized and cleaned up the store, defined some processes to make the daily stuff run more smoothly, and I constantly preached letting the Holy Spirit do His thing in our work place.  The awesome thing was, my staff got totally on board with that, and the atmosphere of the whole place turned around.  Customers would tell us, “I love being in here.  I don’t know why, but this place just makes me feel better.”  The implications weren’t lost on my crew and, the more they saw, the more they put their hearts into doing things the Kingdom way.  It got to where we all loved coming to work every day, everyone joyfully did their jobs and helped each other out, and there was constant laughter and love.

Store sales had been dropping for years, and we were working on ways to increase those sales.  Shortly after starting work, I told the executive staff the root problem:  we didn’t have a wide enough customer base.  We needed to find ways to bring more people in.  After we cleaned up the internal stuff, we started working on marketing ideas to bring in more customers.  We did have an increase in sales that first year – the first increase in over a decade.  But, we weren’t where we needed to be.  We had some great ideas, the crew (paid and volunteer) was enthused and excited about what we were doing, and we were poised to go to the next level.

And the center director brought it all crashing down.  He called me in his office one day and ripped me apart for the way I was running the store.  It came out of the blue.  I’d been his golden child the week before, and suddenly I was on his list.  He complained sales weren’t where he wanted them.  He also told me, “There’s too much laughing going on in there.  If people are laughing, they obviously aren’t working.”  (I still don’t get that logic.)  By the time he got done, the end result was he’d berated me for too much love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and goodness.  Only missed 2 out of the 9 fruit of the Spirit.  He took over and, in just 3 months, dismantled all the progress we’d made in the previous year.  Sales tanked to lower than ever, he held me responsible, and eventually he fired me.  That REALLY hurt.  I cared about the senior center, I cared about my volunteers and paid staff, and I was doing a good job.  It wasn’t fair.  Life rarely is.

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.  (Romans 8:28)

I had a hard time figuring out what the good purpose in that was.  After much thought, here are some things I’ve learned from it:

• I know what it looks like when a place is run by Kingdom principles and everyone involved is on board. I know that, no matter how humble the environment (a thrift store is no palace), when it’s a part of the Kingdom, there’s no better place to be.  That’s no small thing to experience.
• I know my boss thought he knew what he was doing, and I also know the enemy talked him into dismantling that little piece of Kingdom property for them. I know he had no idea who was handling his reigns.  Things still aren’t going the way he wants them to (it’s been 2 years since he let me go), and I know he has no idea why.
• In the Old Testament, when Israel’s king followed God, the country prospered. When he didn’t, they suffered.  Amongst the common folk, you know there were plenty who weren’t following God when the king did, and plenty who were when he wasn’t.  The senior center director was the king in our little Israel, and his decisions made us suffer.  The person in authority holds a HUGE responsibility for the people under him.

After that, the only job I could find was working retail for a corporate conglomerate.  I loathe it, and I’ve been stuck there 2 years.  There are a whole host of things I’ve learned about what NOT to do in business in the past 2 years.  They all boil down to this:  when all you focus on is how much money you can get, and you see everything around you as a tool to get that money, you’re living a fool’s life.  Your perspective is skewed, you do moronic stuff, you use and abuse everything around you and, in the end, you lose a lot of the money you’re trying to so hard to capture.  Even worse, you miss out on the best of what God has to offer.

This season has been a serious trial of my faith.  I’ve felt like maybe God dumped me, maybe I’ve been delusional and He didn’t really call me all those years ago, maybe I really am on my own …

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  (Hebrews 11:1)

Even worse, God’s been rather silent these past 6 years.  I’d gotten used to listening and following His direction for so long, and suddenly it seemed He had nothing to say.  I’d badger the Heavens.  “What?  Why?  When?  Say something!”  Silence in response.  In the silence, what I heard was, “What will you believe?  What are you going to choose?”  I can’t give up.  I went all in back when this started.  I don’t have a Plan B.

Past experience had taught me that these seasons are actually a privilege.  It really isn’t all that often we get to really exercise our faith, in spite of what our 5 senses tell us.  Privilege or not, there’s nothing fun about times like this.  They’re really sucky.  They must be necessary, though, ‘cause God insists on putting us through them.

March of this year I got to go on a one-week tour in Israel.  The whole trip was absolutely THE MOST AMAZING thing I’ve ever done (and, considering I’ve been to multiple countries on 3 continents, that’s saying something), but there was a particular day when He wasn’t silent at all, and He had me crying as I walked the streets of Jerusalem.

He started setting this life lesson up the day after I got to Israel.  On my 2^nd day there (a Saturday), we were in a gift shop at the Tel Dan Nature Reserve, which is in Galilee.  I wanted a t-shirt but didn’t see anything there that worked for me.  I asked the tour guide, Ohri Carmeli, about where to find what I was looking for.  I also mentioned that I really prefer to buy from small, local business owners, rather than big corporate conglomerates, when possible.  He told me, “I know just the place, but it’s in Jerusalem.  The guy that works in the shop owns it, and he has just about everything.  We’ll be there Wednesday.  I’ll show you where his shop is.”  Worked for me, I quit looking for shirts, and we went on doing the stuff we were doing.

Wednesday came, we were in a market area close to Old City in Jerusalem, and Ohri was pointing out some of the shops.  Most of the group was browsing a particular shop, and Ohri called to me to take me to the t-shirt shop.  Three other people in the group followed us (there were 24 of us in all).  There were no other people in the shop when we get there.  We looked around for a bit, chatted with the owner, bought t-shirts, and the rest of our group started filtering in.  Before long, the owner was hustling his tail off, selling t-shirts to 24 people.  Everyone bought shirts, and I don’t think anyone got just one.  I bought 4.  I know one of the others in the group bought 7.  We bought a LOT of t-shirts!

At one point he looked at me, all wide-eyed and amazed.  “This has been a really slow week.  I was so bored I was sleeping on the floor of my shop.  Tourists were walking by, taking pictures of me sleeping.  Then suddenly, this!  I wouldn’t have imagined having such a good day!”

The implications of the whole experience hit me.  I told him, “It seems like suddenly to you, but this has been the plan since last week.  You didn’t know we would be here today, but we made the plan last week.”

We always hear, “God has a plan.”  I’ve never before had such an object lesson, where I was there for the planning, and I witnessed the “suddenly” of the plan’s recipient.  He wasn’t silent that day at all.  I could feel Him whisper to my soul, “Hang on.  There’s a plan.  Your t-shirt day is coming.”

So that’s where I am now.  I’m waiting for T-Shirt Day.  I think He’s been saying it’s time for something new.  I sure hope it’s Him and not my own wishful thinking.  I have an interview with a software company in San Angelo, TX tomorrow.  Going back into the software field isn’t my final dream, but it would be a good move now.  Better hours, better pay, more interesting work.  I SO hope this works out!

My journey isn’t over, but now you’re caught up to where I am today – stuck in Retail Hell, praying t-shirt day comes soon.

Next Series Post:  We’re Through the Bats

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