My boyfriend once told me that the best or greatest boxer in the world is Joe Calzaghe. He was obviously biased as he's English and Joe was English. I asked him why, and he answered simply because he retired undefeated (i.e. he did not lose a match).
I disagreed; not to his point that Joe Calzaghe is the world's greatest boxer - I did not have much knowledge about boxing to argue about that. I disagreed to the idea that 'greatness' or being 'the best' meant that you 'never lost.' Personally, I feel that greatness can be seen more in people who actually suffer defeats and losses, and yet manage to come back again and become a better person. I believe that rising up from a fall or defeat takes more courage and strength of a person that people who have never experienced a fall or defeat can only imagine. This does not mean to say that winners are 'not great' or are 'weak.'
For the past few weeks, I have been crawling and have been slowly trying to find the strength to rise up again from yet another fall.
How many times do you need to apply for the same position, in the same workplace, but with different circumstances, to get the position? In my case, third time's no charm.
I have been working in the same hospital for over four years now, and having become jaded had led me to aspire to progress and go up my career's professional ladder. I pride myself as someone who wants to keep on learning and developing; always trying to be a better version of who I was yesterday. I thirst for challenges and thrive in pressure. Hence, when I reached the point of feeling like being stagnant in my role as a professional, I felt that for my mental health, I needed to move on.
And so I tried to apply for a higher position. I prayed to God with all my heart, because they said that "ask and you shall receive." But for four instances, God's answer was 'no.'
With every single time that I didn't get the job I applied for, I felt like a candle slowly losing my wax and diminishing a little day by day, until my wick reached it's end and I lost my light.
With every rejection, I still prayed and asked God, 'why?'. But for me, all I heard in return was silence.
I hurt after every defeat and the pain I felt got worse each time.
I normally have bouts of crying for a couple of days and nights. And then eventually, I learn to live with the pain; I move on and forced myself to believe that it's not a 'no' from God but rather a 'not now.'
Until finally, on this third time of applying for the same position, something unexpected happened.
I did the interview, and failed to get offered the position that I applied for. And so I went through my usual phase of moving on. This time it took me about two weeks before I found myself being at peace and accepting of what happened. It was the longest time for me to recover, and find the courage to stand up again and fight life's battles so far in my lifetime.
I spoke to God in my prayer and told Him that I believe that His plans are always way better than ours. And the next day, I got an email from my line manager asking me to give her a call as she has a quick question she'd like to ask me.
I was anxious about what it was. I thought at first that she was going to ask about an update regarding an audit that I was meant to be leading for the department. And so I shrugged the message off and planned to respond to her the following day.
I called her back and it turns out she was going to offer me the same position but a different post. All the while she was explaining how the post became possible, a question kept running through my brain was 'is this some kind of a joke?' But it wasn't. She gave me 3 days to think about it as she knew I already applied for the same position in other hospitals.
I thought about it for 3 days, and of course, my obvious answer was yes.
But while mulling it over with my family, I was actually in a state of confusion as to what I should do. I told God that I was ready to move on - to other opportunities and even considering moving on to other hospitals even if it meant changing big chunks of my life and stepping out of my comfort zone. And after having me go through all of that pain, self-doubt, self-pity, humiliation, and eventually, acceptance, God suddenly says, 'now is the time, my child'? I simply was shook, and utterly confused.
But to my family, there's nothing to be confused about and that God's will was crystal clear. They believe that it was God's way of testing my faith and wanting me to learn something.
I realised that in all of those job interviews, the reason why this 4th time was different was because this was the only time that I actually became totally at peace and surrendered to God's will after. I didn't just learned to live with pain and humiliation. This time, I actually fully accepted that greater things are yet to come.
Maybe this time, I finally passed the test and so God finally said 'yes.'
This experience taught me that it truly is frightening not knowing what the future holds for us, but knowing Who holds the future makes all the difference.
So find that courage to rise up again and keep the faith. When God closes a door, be prepared for Him to open up windows or even the roof... in His time.
