When You Get A Yes

Hey friends, family, strangers (if there are any of you reading this who don't know us, welcome),

This week was a monumental week for the Bass family. After 9 months of being back from Ireland, James began his full time job. He had been working diligently job searching, working part time jobs, and working over 60 hour work weeks with two part time jobs these past few months. That all changed on Monday, and the story of how we got here is one for the record books.

Some of you may know pieces of it via social media or hearing from friends or family. Some of you were very much a part of it, walking through the continual ups/downs/and horrific waiting that accompanies job searching. Big shout out to our discipleship group, lifegroup, best friends, and family who trudged through it with us. 

This week I felt the need to share a few more details into our story because my hope is that it will deeply encourage somebody. Whether you are in the middle of a job search, following a dream God has given you, or just in a particularly rough season of waiting on what feels like forever for God to make a move; I hope this helps. 

Where it all began

This all started much further back than August 2016, when we stepped off the plane at DFW. This journey really began on Curracloe Beach in Ireland. It was our favorite beach, the place where James and I would go to dream dreams and envision our life. As God began to close our chapter in Ireland we began to dream together of what he may have next for us. For me, it was most definitely without a doubt getting to work as a child life specialist in the hospital setting. For James the dream was to continue in ministry, doing what he loved, pastoring the church. It seemed pretty clear to us, he was currently rocking at ministry and loving every second of it, why not continue to do it when we got back?

The few weeks before we left Ireland James began job searching. He had countless positive conversations and interviews in the month we got back with various churches and ministries in Dallas. Then I was blown out of the water when after two weeks of being back in the states I got the call that I got the job as a child life specialist, a dream more than a decade in the making for me. We rolled into September, I started my job and James and I began to pray about what church and ministry God wanted him to be a part of. 

When the answer is "no"

This is when it got hard, when God first tipped his hand that this may not go the way we thought. Because as we prayed, and as job offers from churches and ministries came in, we kept hearing a resounding "no" from God. For those of you with kids between the ages of 18 months and 3 years old who have experienced the gravity and drama associated with telling your child "no" and the ensuing meltdown that can occur, that is how I would best describe my typical response when God tells me "no" to something I'm positive that I desperately need. These weren't just any churches. These were churches and ministries we theologically agreed and deeply resonated with, and God was saying "no." What the heck God!

So my husband, in one of the bravest moves I've seen him pull to date turned down these job offers one by one, until there weren't any job offers left. This began the scarier season of October through December, where I was happily working my job that was incredible but in no way could financially support the both of us, we were living with James' parents going on three months at that point, and we both had no idea what job James was supposed to pursue or what he even wanted to do. Top it off with having to share one car and not having any savings, we found ourselves in one of the most desperate places we had been in to date. 

During this time God showed up and provided through many odd jobs that family and friends (shout out to the Basses and Briscoes) gave to James that helped not only float us but also enabled him to maintain his sanity. James began broadening his scope of job searching to coffee shops, book stores, para church organizations and began thinking about what going into counseling would look like, but the picture wasn't any clearer to either of us. And on top of that none of those jobs he was applying to ended up offering him a job. It was adding insult to injury. First he had gotten job offers, good ones, that he turned down and now he wasn't getting anything! Even though James had his master's in marriage and family therapy, for those of you who may not be familiar with the therapy world, when you begin counseling you have to accrue thousands of hours before becoming professionally licensed and in most cases are getting paid hardly anything for the few years it takes to accrue those hours. So in the moment, when you have no savings and are still living with your parents, it wasn't really an option.

All out of options

So in a move that was almost completely born out of desperation we decided to fast one weekend in November and believe for God to show up. We prayed and fasted and at the very end when we decided to break the fast and share with each other what we felt God say we hadn't really gotten anything new or anything clearer. A few minutes later I checked my phone and found a text from a good friend of ours. She had sent the text the very minute we had broken the fast and in it she said "I don't know why I haven't shared this with ya'll yet, but for the past few weeks every time I pray about James' job I keep hearing "counseling" and feel peace about that instead of ministry in a church." That text message, in one fell swoop, changed it all. It was the first clear thing we had heard about jobs in months and it also happened to be the first time counseling had been mentioned from somebody we completely trusted was interceding for us. 

The month of November went by and James applied to a few more places including one counseling place that the son of a family friend worked at. November turned into December, our budget looked as meek and mild as the baby Jesus in the manger and James was no closer to a job. A few days before Christmas James got a call from that counseling place out of the blue, they were looking to fill a part time position, found his application and wanted him to come in for an interview. We were pretty excited but tried to suppress the joy so as not to get let down one more time. At the same time James had gotten an e-mail from a student at DBU looking for a caregiver for his last semester of his undergrad.  That too, came out of nowhere, we thanked the Lord for the opportunities but wondered how it would all work out. Mind you at this point we were still living with his parents, and James' younger brother had also moved back home for the winter break, so we were all one big happy family of 5 adults sharing bathrooms and kitchen space and wanting more than anything that Christmas for Santa to bring us our own home. 

New Year's Eve weekend rolled around and we decided we needed to get away just to pray and think about these two jobs that it looked like it was coming down to. We got away and the first night we got a call from the student at DBU offering James the care giving position full time. That weekend was spent rejoicing and thanking God but also wondering about the counseling job and the word that we had gotten in November. The following Monday, Innovation 360 offered him a part time position as a life development coach, which is essentially experiential therapy where they take their clients to do activities to process what's happening in their lives. We had a decision to make: to take only one of the jobs meant we'd be in James' parents house for a while longer, or to take both of the jobs meant 2 hour commutes and 60-70 hour work weeks for the next few months. We prayed about it and in another move of complete strength and bravery my husband took on both jobs. Which meant in February we were able to move out of James' parent's house after 6 months of living with them, at the ripe old ages of 25 and 26, after being married for 4 years (just want to paint the picture for you.) It kinda felt like a jail break, except that I love my in-laws and they cooked us dinner every night. But the freedom, the freedom was like no other. Like I could walk around in my own space with various levels of clothing on kinda freedom.

Celebrating This Week

On Friday, James finished up care giving with Brian at DBU. I can't explain all that the role entailed because I didn't live it. But I can say for all the long commutes, the unseen work of care giving, and the physical toll of it, I don't know if I've ever been more proud of James Bass. A few weeks ago James got the offer to start full time as a life development coach and coordinator, a job that he had fallen in love with doing part time. Oh and it also happens to be in the .05% of therapy jobs where they pay you a decent salary even before you are professionally licensed. Go figure! His first day of full time work was this Monday, the next business day after his full time job with care giving ended. God's timing again, something I never fully comprehend in the moment, turned out to be perfect. 

A good friend of ours and beyond brilliant woman of God shared with me back in the bleak seasons in the fall after James turned down multiple jobs that "all of God's no's are for our good, they make sense in hindsight, we just have to remember that in the moment when it doesn't make any sense at all" Oh man, was she spot on. 

So here's my encouragement to you, if you have been told "no" by people, by your job, or even by God. If you are out of options and far from your dreams. You may be even sharing in the blessing of living back home with your parents post college. If you feel like you are stuck with no clear direction and no money in your bank account to support you even if you did. We've been there, recently. By no means will I say it was a walk in the park but my goodness I can say God out-did himself. I've got the hindsight now that comes after the "no's" and I am confident that we are exactly where we need to be in Dallas serving the weary, the broken, and the hurting. He's got that for you too, he has a "yes" for you that will come after all of this waiting. The rainbow after the storm, if you will. And if you wait for it, if you hold on to that promise just a little longer, it will be absolutely breathtaking when you see it come to fruition. Just you wait. He's always faithful to bring the "yes" after the "no."