Hallelujah Day
“The Lord reached down from on high and took hold of me; He drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place; He rescued me because He delighted in me.” (Psalm 18:16-19)
In my last post,Journey Out of Nineveh, I detailed my decision to quit my job and trust God with whatever came next. One day after making that decision, David received an offer on the house we’d spent nearly two years renovating. While we eventually turned down the initial offer, we accepted another full-priced bid one week after putting a “For Sale by Owner” sign in the yard. God provided me with a safety net after I followed His direction to end my employment with an organization that I knew was facilitating anti-Godly practices. His provision astounded me and surpassed my expectations. What came next proved even more incredible than David’s house sale.
After spending two weeks in Marshall, NC, to support my former role in person, I knew something had to give. Halfway through the 96 hours I put in during my first week on site, I checked my inbox before collapsing into bed that evening. In my mail was a LinkedIn message advising me of jobs the app presumed I might be interested in. I knew I didn’t have an active job search running, yet a mailing with prospective positions was waiting for me in my mailbox, just the same.
When I opened the message, I was shocked that one of the first recommended roles was for an executive assistant position at the company I’d just left less than two months before. Could this ad be for my old job? Where did this mailing come from?
I shared the news with David the following day as he prepared to drive to Marshall so we could serve with Samaritan’s Purse in Asheville the next day. The upcoming activity helped me get through the week. Knowing that David would be with me soon kept me energized. I was equally overjoyed at the prospect of showing God’s love to hurting North Carolinians whose homes had been damaged by Hurricane Helene.
“I’m thinking of reaching out to my old boss to ask him about this job listing,” I told David.
“Go for it, love!” David replied. “You need to get out of there.”
And so, I did.
After a night of waiting for a response from my former boss, I wrote to him again the following day as David and I drove to the Billy Graham Headquarters to begin our day’s activities. This time, I wasn’t so subtle. My text advised my previous manager – a friend and fellow believer – that I wanted to return to the company. I also inquired about the open position I’d seen online. I knew the time for subtlety was over. He immediately responded.
Unfortunately, he said the position was not to support him, so he advised me to apply through standard channels. While I attempted to do so that evening, the posting had already been taken down online.
After sending out a few more inquiries with former colleagues, I learned the open role would support a higher executive than I did previously. Compelled to continue, I created a cover letter, updated my resume, and sent everything directly to the executive seeking a new assistant. In my mailing, I advised him that while the job posting had disappeared, I remained wholeheartedly interested and would consider myself incredibly privileged to support him.
A day later, the recruiter conducting this job search advised me that the position was a hybrid role, not remote and that I needed to live in Ohio to be considered. I asked if an exception could be made and was told it couldn’t. I thanked her and asked her to keep me in mind if anything changed.
My friends and former executives told me not to give up. I assured them I wouldn’t – and began earnestly praying for God to make His plans known. No matter what, I wouldn’t stop seeking His will. As I always do when requesting my Heavenly Father’s guidance, I ask Him to open or shut the door completely. Amid my prayers, I gathered hope when the executive I’d written to replied to me, himself, and said he’d be in touch. Still, I surrendered anew and committed to waiting for God’s direction.
The week before Christmas, just a day after submitting my two-week notice of resignation and three days after God blessed us with David’s original house offer, the same recruiter that told me the position required me to live in Cleveland, wrote me again, revising her statement to say that the position was now open to being remote. She ended by saying that she wanted to speak to me. I immediately called her.
A half-hour later, I was scheduled for a virtual interview with the executive in question – just two days before Christmas. I couldn’t have been more excited – nor could I have thanked God more for this complete change in circumstance that His hand had provided.
The morning of my interview, I reached out to one of my current colleagues – a young lady whose father is a Samaritan’s Purse chaplain. Throughout the past months, I had struggled with her presumed wholehearted acceptance of the New Age concepts I’d so viscerally rejected as a Christian. I had recently notified her and my other team members of my impending departure and wanted her, in particular, to know why I was leaving. I was also hoping to understand better why she’d so wholly embraced the non-Christian principles I knew her evangelical father rejected.
While my friend respectfully listened as I shared my concerns about the New Age practices she was embracing, she remained unfazed at my revelations – including those about her company’s partnership with the reincarnationists at the Researchers of Truth I detailed in my blog – The Lost World of New Age Religion. I encouraged her to call me back to discuss her faith. She never did.
As I hung up, I told David how disheartened I was, saying, “I gave her every opportunity to affirm our shared faith. She never did.”
“You did all you could, love,” David said. “She heard your heart. The rest is up to her.”
Realizing how close I was to my interview time, I began to panic. I’d not prepared much for this important interview, and my eyes were a puffy mess from crying. “If I get this job, it’s because of God,” I told David. “I’m just giving it all to Him.”
“You’ve got this,” David said. “He’s going to love you!”
Forty-five minutes later, I was all smiles. “Our time ran over and he never rushed,” I told David. “I feel good about everything – but it’s all up to God.” I had no idea what would happen next.
Every Christmas Day, I send all my friends digital messages of God’s love. This year, I felt led to do the same with the executive I’d soon be leaving, even though I know she’s an atheist. After praying with David and asking God to bless my words and open my boss’s heart, I sent her a link to Matthew West’s song, “Because of Bethlehem.” My accompanying text read, “This is why I am blessed. This is the love that exists in every fiber of my body. I am who I am because of Bethlehem.”
I had no idea how she’d respond, but I followed the Holy Spirit’s prompting to send the message. This beautiful song contains the gospel message wrapped up in a four-and-a-half-minute video, and I knew she needed to hear it. I prayed with David before sending the video – asking God to open her heart to His love. A half-hour later, I received her two-word response: “So beautiful.”
While I didn’t expect much, knowing that she’d watched the video made me happy – and I told her so. Through my tears, I thanked her for listening while affirming my love for her. I hope that she will see my love as the living embodiment of God’s.
My new prayer is that my former boss’s eyes will be opened, and she will know Christ’s love, herself, one day. I can only hope that my words, actions, and prayers will long be remembered now that I’m gone. My earnest belief is that they will think about my testimony in the days to come and wonder about the person who was the first to quit their company and their culture – or so my former boss told me. I hope they heard my reasons for doing so and will never forget my unflinching faith.
On January 2nd, 2025, our move-out day had finally arrived. David and I picked up a 26-foot U-Haul truck that morning and began loading it in the frigid wind, thanking God anew for bringing us to this incredible day I’d often wondered if we’d ever see.
My last day at my company was Tuesday, December 31st – and the missing weight from my shoulders was palpable. I can hardly express how freeing it was to let that job go and re-surrender everything to my Savior. January 2nd was “Loading Day.” David and I were excited to begin the next chapter of our lives in the new year – giving everything anew to our Heavenly Father.
When we sat down to lunch that day, I looked at my phone and realized I’d missed a text from the recruiter at my former job. “Call me when you can,” was all the message relayed.
“Call her now! And don’t go in the other room,” David exclaimed. “I want to be here when you call her back.”
“I will,” I responded, “but you must be quiet. They want someone professional in this role so there can’t be any noise in the background. Not even chewing,” I told David.
Less than a minute later, I pumped my fist in the air, and David yelled, “Hallelujah!”
We both laughed with joy. So much for professionalism, I thought, even as I, too, shared in the enthusiasm.
“I’m sorry,” I told the recruiter. “That was my husband, and we’re both just excited.”
She laughed and exclaimed, “That’s okay. Woo hoo!”
After hanging up, I stared at David in disbelief. “I just quit my job two days ago,” I said. “And now this? The recruiter didn’t even tell me what they’d pay me – saying she’ll let me know when my soon-to-be new boss returns from his Christmas vacation. He told her not to wait, and to begin onboarding me. What a God we serve!”
“Loading Day just turned into Hallelujah Day!” I declared to David as tears fell down my face. “Yay, God!”
“Yay, God,” David affirmed with tears in his eyes. “Look at what He has done!” After laughing, hugging, and rejoicing, I thought my face might explode from smiling.
That night, David and I sold his primary bedroom set after listing it on Facebook Marketplace. The buyer was a Panamanian Christian who brought friends from her church to help her load the bedroom set in her truck. She is a single mom and needed the set for a friend coming to visit her in a few weeks. I couldn’t help testifying to her, too – telling her how quickly we’d sold the house and how God had just given me a new job that day.
“Amen,” she said. “God is good!”
“We can never outgive our Heavenly Father,” I replied. “His grace is greater than any of us could ever imagine!” I rejoiced anew at how God had helped us sell David’s final furniture to another one of His children who needed it. My testimonies are overflowing, as is God’s mercy.
The next day, David and I spent the morning finishing our packing. While I commented that we might want to stay another day, David was ready to head to GA.
After finishing our final cleaning, I was eager to start our 9-hour drive south. David stopped me. “We need to pray before we leave.”
As David and I stood in the living room of the home we were preparing to leave, we knew that our Heavenly Father had blessed us above and beyond anything we could have ever imagined. Through his tears, David thanked God for every step of the journey that had led him to surrender his life to His Savior.
David spent the last forty-four years living in VA Beach – lonely and unsatisfied. It took his complete surrender to Christ for our Heavenly Father to bring us to that moment. None of this might have happened without God’s grace and unfathomable love. We might have missed all our current blessings had each of us not been willing to yield our will to our Creator.
Two hours later, while following David in the moving truck, I received a call from the recruiter with the payment offer she told me she wouldn’t have until the following week. I nearly drove off the road when she told me my new hourly wage.
The offer they were giving me was more than they had listed in the job description. It was more than I ever thought I’d ever make – even with annual bonuses over several years. The pay she detailed was more than I could fully contemplate. How did this happen? How could this be true? When the recruiter asked me if their offer was agreeable, I told her I was just happy to be back. “Anything above receiving this job is just icing on the cake,” I responded. “You just made my year!”
After hanging up, I called David. “You won’t believe it,” I told him. “The recruiter just called me with their offer. Whenever I feel that God has blessed me more than I deserve, He blesses me even more!” With absolute joy, I continued, “What a God we serve!”
And so, here I am, one week into my new job that God knew He’d give me when I left the company the first time. All I had to do was trust and obey – just as I did when I went to FL to serve Him in 2022. It was there after my initial act of surrender that He gave me the husband He created for me.
And now, He’s given me a job beyond anything I could have achieved alone. None of this would have happened had I not heeded God’s call to go to Nineveh and testify about my faith. Of that, I have no doubt. I would never have applied for this job had I stayed – and I don’t believe I would have received this pay outside of God’s provision. This type of blessing can only have come from my Savior.
I am more grateful than words can ever verbalize. Every time I surrender and say, “I give it all to you, Father,” He brings down blessings in such a way that I can never explain. Every time David and I pray, our litany of thanks is a mile-long.
No matter what happens, we know our Creator is at work. We trust Him with our lives and our entire existence. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
While January 2nd will always be known as my “Hallelujah Day,” I am continually blessed – every single day. God’s provision may not rain down on me with such magnitude as it did at the start of this year, but it’s always with me. Every day, I begin my prayers by thanking God for everything He’s given me: a comfortable home, a job, clothing, good health, food in the fridge, and an overflowing pantry. Healthy or sick, joyful or distressed, God is always with me – always taking care of me. Of that, I have no doubt.
Most of all, I thank God for the love that surrounds me. I have the love of a God-given husband, and I have always had the same from my Heavenly Father. I know that both these loves existed before I was even born – before time began. No matter what I do or how I surrender my life to Him, I can never give back as much as I’ve received. Every day is Hallelujah Day to me.
Luke 6:38 reminds us to “Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” My life is living evidence of this truth. I pray that your life also embodies the same.
God’s mercy and grace surround all of us – in abundant seasons and in times of drought. He will never leave us or forsake us. If we only surrender all to Jesus, He will always give us back more than we could ever give.
