faith and the butterfly effect

Back in April, I had a funny little God moment that I wrote off as merely a nice confirmation of good things to come.

I was on the prowl for a full-time job of the sort that matched my resume – chock full of event and office admin experience. A friend of mine gave me the number of a friend in the construction business who was looking for someone to help him out in the office. On that slim lead (and a strong suspicion that I wouldn’t be a very good fit in any capacity in construction), I called this guy, Joel, up and asked him about the job.

Joel and I had a great conversation where he asked a lot of thoughtful questions, and we both agreed at the end that my suspicions were correct – I wouldn’t be good fit for the job. However, Joel left me with contact information for another job at a leadership development company in the area that had a job opening available for a coordinator.

Well, as a freelancer now, I know that you leave no word-of-mouth network stone unturned, so I turned that stone and sent them my resume that night.

Turns out, they had filled the position only a day before.

But wait, there’s more

That’s when the hiring manager on the other end said – “Hey, I see you have writing on your resume. Have you ever done case studies?”

I’ve done a fair amount of pitches in my time as a freelancer and aspiring author (I will claim the “author” moniker when I get a book published), and the best sort of pitch is the one someone asks for. I immediately pounced on the opportunity and told her, in no uncertain terms, that I had never written a case study in my life. (truth!) But wait! I write stories, and (as a quick Google search on “case studies” had revealed to me) a case study is essentially a story about how your product changed someone’s lives.

Just as an aside, when life presents you with opportunities to fudge your way into something or to be honest, be honest – and then fudge your way in anyway. It’s not about lying about your experiences, its about learning to apply them, and how to do so in a convincing way. You don’t need to have many experiences under your belt as long as you’re continually learning from them.

The fact of the matter is that she bought it, and gave me an opportunity to audition my writing skills, and then she hired me for regular freelance work.

I thought this was wonderful – a great opportunity to try my hand at actual paying gigs. I also considered it a sign from God, in a small way, that there was actual value in the direction I was looking at.

But wait, there’s still more

Fast-forward to July, and after three or four case studies and a dozen or so job possibilities falling through… this company offered me a job as a staff writer.

I always think of things in such small ways. I believe that God works in both big and small ways, of course, but practically I never think that those two sizes of miracles will ever intersect. But here, in the span of four months, a text from a friend made its way from two jobs that fell through to a freelance gig and a full-time job offer.

It reminds me – because I am so forgetful of these things – that the small things demand as much gratitude as the big ones. That whole butterfly effect idea, that a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the globe makes a hurricane on the other, isn’t just a fancy philosophical idea. It’s basically how the life of faith works. You plant mustard seeds and they become the biggest tree in the garden. You pray a prayer and whole nations shift around it. You find a tiny grain of faith that shakes a mountain’s core. Our lives as Christians are riddled with examples of small made large.

And even if those tiny miracles just stayed tiny, would they not be worth celebrating anyway?

By the way, I talked them down to a part-time job, because between April and July I had built up a backlog of freelance gigs that were taking up so much of my time I could only accept part-time.

Our God is in the business of growth – our hearts, our minds, our worlds. I’m learning, slowly, that it’s best to be ready for anything.