Welcome back to the Promises of God Podcast, Episode number 39 my name is Tracie Rollins, and I want to thank you so much for spending some time with me as we learn and take action on God’s promises in life. This months series is about living life, and we’re working out of the momentum devotional offered by Bible Journaling Ministries titled Live Life. You can learn more about Bible journaling with their free 10-day Bible journaling course at BibleJournalingMinistries.com. The thing that we might be running away from our verse is Isaiah 32:8 and I’ll read this out of the world English Bible it says, but the Nobel devices noble things and he will continue in nipple things. I’m going to read the entire section out of Isaiah 32, and the NIV version says, see, a King will reign in his righteousness and rulers were a world with justice.
Each one will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm like streams of water in the desert, and the shadow of a great walk in a thirsty land than the eyes of those who will see will no longer be closed. And the ears of those who hear will listen. The fearful heart will know and understand, and the stammering tongue will be fluent in clear. No longer will the fill be called noble, nor the Scoundrel. Be highly respected for fulls speak folly, their hearts, our beds on evil. They practice in godliness and spread error concerning the Lord the Hungary. They leave Auntie in front of the Thursday. They withhold water scoundrels, and she’s wicked methods. They make up evil schemes to destroy the poor would lies even when the plea of the needy is, but the Nobel makes Nobel plans, and by noble deeds, they stand.
I love this whole section because it starts to get me excited about our kingdom in heaven and helps me look forward to something that is just super and amazing and towards something beautiful instead of escaping things in my current life. I was watching a commercial the other day about escaping life and having fun, fun on this cruise line. These passengers were gambling. They were dancing, and they were swimming and jumping off the diving board and just having so much fun being entertained. There were games and shows. It just looked like so much fun. But then I got to thinking because the whole was about escaping your life and going on this cruise. And I start to think about the characters in the commercial, like what were they escaping from Are they running from a job they hate. Perhaps they’re trying to forget about debt that’s been piling up for years, and maybe they want to escape their responsibilities in life after much thought, it occurred to me that escape isn’t what I, what I desire.
I’d rather run towards something than away from it. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had days where I’ve wanted to quit my job. I remember just sobbing in the bathroom after I was humiliated by my boss is completely humiliated. After she was done humiliating me, I got up and walked out of her office, and the tears just started coming down my face and I just, I literally ran to the bathroom and closed myself in the stall and just let them fall. I was so miserable being in that particular career and work smart work situation. Not only was it an hour drive to work and an hour drive home, but it was like I could never do enough. Everything that I gave was just never enough, and I was taught performing. It wasn’t like I was, I, I was, you know, progressing in my career, but it just was never enough for anybody and it just, it was so hard.
I just wanted to get out of it. And I remember after that day I wanted to quit. Like right away. I just wanted to go to HR. I put my notice in and just quit. But I didn’t. I waited through the day, and once a day was over, I got my car. I drove back home and came home and talked to my husband. Of course, my husband’s so supportive. I mean, we couldn’t afford for me to quit, but he was like, quit your job right now. You don’t have to go back. We’ll make it work. And we always make it work. You know we don’t, we can downsize life. It’s not like we need to have; each kid doesn’t need to have their bedroom. I mean, we can downsize life if we need to and we can get rid of a car and go to one car.
We’ve been, we’ve had one car in our family before. We don’t need two vehicles and just amazing that he is so supportive and he was ready for when equipped quit. But I said, no, I’m not going to quit. I’m going to look on the internet to find out how to quit my job the right way because I didn’t want to throw in the towel. I had never just quit a job without having another job before I quit — the other job. I’ve always had a job and then quit. But this time I wasn’t going to. I wasn’t planning on quitting for another job. I wanted to quit, but I wanted to do it the right way. So I looked up on the internet, how to quit a job in this book came up, it was called quitter, and it’s a book by John, and I read that book in like, I don’t that very same day.
It’s like I read that book, downloaded it, read it, and it changed my life because it, he mentioned that, you know, just you have to be where you are and do the best you can in a way that honors God where you are and then take steps to get out of that situation. You don’t have to stay there. Now if you’re in an abusive career like I was, or an abusive relationship with anything or anybody, um, you don’t have to stay. You don’t have to stay. You can make plans to get out right away. You don’t have to stay. There are plenty of places you could go to get help. I could have gone to HR to get help. I didn’t have to, and I didn’t have to stay. I didn’t have to be isolated. It was a choice. I should’ve gone to HR, and I should have talked to them, but I didn’t.
And Yeah, I kind of wish I did, but I, I think that my path and my journey as it is right now, very happy with how it’s turned out so far, even though it’s been tough. And some of the decisions that I’ve made haven’t been good decisions, but you know, it’s all about the journey in life and lessons and learning and growing and being sanctified and just part of life. So anyway, I planned my exit after reading that book and started working on the next steps. So immediately I got my resume up to speed. I started putting feelers out for new jobs, and this time, I was going to find a job so much closer to me, my house. And actually, I ended up finding a job that was 15 minutes from my house to my seat. It was amazing and got to spend a lot more time seeing my kids grow up, which was so important to me and a better educational experience.
But going to that job also, I was in an abusive situation with another boss there. He ended up getting fired because he was abusive to multiple people. But, um, again, if you’re in a situation where someone is rude to you, you need to stand up. And in that situation I was, I think that I had learned so much about my previous job and being abused by that boss, that I wasn’t going to allow it to happen again. And so when I went into the new work situation and had a boss that was verbally abusing me and yelling at me loud so that, I mean, like just yelling at me till I’d cried, um, I wasn’t going to take it anymore. So in that situation, he was on the phone with me, and he was yelling at me for some reason, and everybody turned around because we were in a cubicle environment where everyone could hear him, yell at me through the phone. And I ended up telling him to calm down and that he can, if he wasn’t going to talk to me in a respectful manner, he could just, he could not be talking to me, and I’m going to hang up the phone.
After that call, I did see my department head and was there with my resignation and telling him I wasn’t going to take this anymore. This isn’t what I signed up for. And I’d rather not have a job than listen to someone and be abused by someone here at this work environment. It turns out I wasn’t the only one that he had done this too in the past. And eventually he was let go, and I was under a new manager who I adored, um, went on to work on it for another amazing woman in that job as well. So there are brighter tunnels, and you don’t have to ever, ever be abused by anybody. So don’t necessarily run away, but face it and use the help that is around you and that you can receive to lift you. I, there were so many times that I could have reached out for help in one of my circumstances, and I didn’t in the next time it happened.
I did. And it was a fantastic turnout, and I got to experience amazing things in that career and loved it. And had I let him bully me, then maybe I wouldn’t have experienced all those great things. Maybe I would’ve run away from that job and never have met the beautiful woman that I got to meet and have those relationships that I still have today with some of those amazing women. So just kind of food for thought and thoughts about not, not running away and standing, standing your ground, planning for a better exit, planning for something better in your future. So when I talk about vacations, as we’ve been talking about the last few episodes about taking breaks and enjoying holidays and even today where I was talking about the cruise line, add vacations, they aren’t about running away from anything. They’re not about running away from your family or work or responsibilities or your, for your life.
They really should be planned to minimize the impact on people around you, and that is impacted by when you leave, right So maybe you have a work environment that requires you to work in teams. A, your vacation should be planned so that you don’t just throw your work onto other people, that it’s planned in that if there is work that they have to pick up, that they are able to pick it up or that your work can continue as you leave. So, I mean, it’s not like you get up and leave you, you plan for that time and maybe during that time you take on less of a workload, maybe perhaps up to your vacation, maybe you work a little bit longer, but so that you can take some time off. There have been times that I’ve had to do that and don’t necessarily think that that’s the best way to do things.
But even in the ministry, if I want to take a vacation, I still have work to do. So I plan all that and work a little extra so that I can take that time off. So think about it, minimize the impact of the work environment. And you also know when you have vacations planned, where you’re going and when you’re going to be back. And if you’re like me, you may even want to play in your mini vacations. If you’re like me and your head’s down on work and love what you do, um, or even if you hate what you do and you are really that committed to your career and your work. It’s important to take these mini vacations. They are often known as breaks throughout your day. So I would encourage you to do that and to think about that as not as an escape or running away from your work or running away from something but rather a break to have something better to run towards.
Maybe a healthier you like during your break. If you are taking a break for your health, perhaps that is a, a thought of maybe running towards better health for yourself. So this week take some time to write or journal about the thing that you’re trying to escape from. And instead of thinking about it as an escape, can you think of it as running towards something better and make a plan to get there And if you’re here today and you’re running away from something in your life, I encourage you to run towards God. Ask him to remove that fear in your life and then listen as the Holy Spirit guides you. If you’re a child of God, but you feel like you want to escape the life that you’re in. Column, the Holy Spirit, to help you fight this battle, to give you direction and discernment to make that next step, to take that next small step to get you towards something better instead of running away from something that you’re escaping from. You’re not promised tomorrow, so don’t put this off from. And Romans 6:23 says, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus our Lord. So turn to him, confess your sins, and follow his wall and your life, and you will feel the love of Christ that surpasses all understanding. I want to thank you so much for tuning in today, and I’ll see you in the next Episode of the Promises of God Podcast. Goodbye. Thanks for listening to the promises of God podcast. This podcast is sponsored by Bible Journaling Ministries where thousands of women grow in the word creatively. It’s your free 10-day course for other ministries and other episodes resources at ThePromisesofGodPodcast.Com.
Episode 039: What Are You Running Away From?
