Life's Lemons, God' Lemonade

Life’s Lemons, God’s Lemonade

By Gary Labbe

I firmly believe that everything that happens is a part of God's plan—but the limitations of our internal paradigms keep us from understanding the entire picture. In the rare instance where we can, over time, get a glimpse into His design, it is a wonderful feeling. But on one such occasion for me, it didn’t feel like a gift at first.

I was having lunch with a very good friend who, in my estimation, has a better understanding of who God is than anyone I have ever known. He truly has the heart of Jesus. We were discussing my losing my job and the difficulties I had in finding a new one. I had a fantastic resume, but after a year and a half of sending out hundreds of resumes, I got just one telephone interview. My friend thought for a minute then asked if I thought it was possible that someone could  have blackballed me.

I couldn’t think of why anyone would do that. I had the greatest job you could imagine. I worked in IT with the same company for 27 years. I started as a programmer, it was interesting work and I enjoyed the mental challenge. I then moved to working on networks and systems, which was equally challenging and gave me a whole new prespective on how computer could be used. I followed all of these experiences by moving into management. I worked in different management roles first as; director of data processing, then as director of application development, and for the last twelve years, I worked as director of design and development. I managed five highly skilled technical teams. Our charge was to introduce and implement new technology into our company.

I completed several large and complex projects, from a Year 2000 conversion to the conversion from a proprietary computer system with custom applications to an open-source platform running a pre-packaged Oracle applications (we accomplished the project by adding four new staff members and retraining the entire group responsible without losing one person), to redesigning the computer platform and systems that would be used in over a half a million inventories a year. The redesign brought the technology into the 21^st century, adding wireless devices that allowed real-time management statistics to be gathered and analyzed. Before, this information was only available in weekly reports. My expertise was in developing and managing a staff capable of performing these complex tasks. I was also a certified Project Management Professional, a certification similar in prestige and rigor as a CPA certification.

I remember going to job fairs and having recruiters tell me how impressed they were with my resume. I loved my old job and was invested in my career. When I started moving into management, I went back to school and earned my master's degree. As I worked more closely with teams and came to see them as an effective means of completing projects, I went back to school again and earned my PhD, conducting original research on the effects of management structures on team performance. I worked very hard to ensure that I could perform at the highest level possible in whatever position I was in.

When no offer came in I ended up taking the only job available as an adjunct professor, that led to a full-time teaching position, but I was never able to get back to my old line of work. It was the work that I loved so much and the position that I had trained so hard for.

At that time my wife had a fantastic job. She was an analyst for IBM and worked on a virtual team of six people. Most of the time she worked at home, could keep her own hours, and didn't have to get out of her pajamas. A few times a year, she would have to fly somewhere for a presentation. But for the most part, she was free to work at her own speed.

Carol was an overachiever. She came from a family of five brothers and two sisters, all overachievers and all vying for their parents’ attention. It was a very competitive environment. When I came into the picture, it seemed that due to my continued success, I could at times suck the oxygen out of the room. Looking back over the years, I can see that Carol had to live in my shadow. She never complained, but it had to, at the very least, been uncomfortable.

Most of my classes were night classes, which allowed me to spend my days at home grading papers and preparing lectures. There were times when Carol would be slammed, and with my limited knowledge, I could do grunt work for her. It wasn't difficult work, but it could save her a good deal of time throughout a project, allowing her to meet her deadlines without pressure. There were times she was under a tremendous amount of pressure. Some of those times caused her to miss important events. With my help, those incidents became less frequent.

Even more importantly, our roles had reversed. I was regularly working for her, and she had turned into the family's main breadwinner. She enjoyed and deserved the reversal. Our relationship had dramatically changed. It seemed to be working very well.

But just two years later, Carol passed away in her sleep. She was only 55 years old. She left way too soon. I spent two years feeling sorry for myself, thinking I was cursed by losing the job that I loved so much, when I had been given a wonderful blessing. It is an amazing event when you can view life from a perspective that allows you to see God's handiwork.

My initial reaction to my friend’s question about being blackballed was “No, that's not possible.” Then I thought, yes, I was blackballed. It was God who blackballed me. He knew what I needed and where I needed to be, and He made sure it happened.