Novemberdecember: 61 Days of Christmas
[Part 9*]
*the last part.
Remember August 2016, when I felt God calling me to leave my job in accounting to go work on a cruise ship?
(It’s fine- I barely remember. I had to look it up in my notes.)
Back then, I got straight to it. I applied with every cruise line, in every position. But I couldn’t get a callback. I struggled to get any job in cruising for a year and 10 months. Then came the moment of destiny, when I was hired for the weirdest job in the middle of China: Chief Executive Token White Lady.
GOOD TIMES.
I was acceptable for that job because it was on a river. The ocean ships required a full stack of maritime certificates before they’d look at you- and I’d never been able to afford those prerequisites. Now, in 2023, I had them! (See the company-sponsored training trip back in March. Those documents are valid for five years…green light go!)
(from Tess Sackmann’s highly coveted original jewelry line)
I started doing the interviews for all those jobs I’d applied for from the road in September.
But would you believe? When I told them I’d left my last job because it was hard and I ran away and gave up, they were like,
“Ohhhhhh, neat…so definitely we won’t hire you.”
And I was like,
“Ah, cool, good, ok, no worries… anyway I want somebody who will love me for me.”
Zoom interviews at Haley’s for days <3
Meanwhile, after the spooky season wrapped up, I retired from being a ghost tour guide and looked for something else short-term to do. On Craigslist, I came across a posting for a gig at the Winter market- selling floral-inspired jewelry. I could work 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, until New Year’s Day. I thought,
“Well that sounds great. Let’s get that money, let’s go! Let’s live all season long in Christmas. I want to drink that joy in a cup.”
The woman who owned the company was a beautiful soul. She had experienced an immense loss, when as a newlywed, she lost both her husband and her father. She set out to create something that would remind her of life and growth, and began designing beautiful, blooming adornments. She named her company Gratinsta, “because the purpose is simple: it’s just to make you happy!”
I interviewed with Manali on the morning of my brother’s wake- though I kept that information from her at the time. As I listened to her story, I thought, It seems good, in this season, that I should work for her.
At the same time, she shared with me,
“When I read your application, and saw how you are involved with church, I thought, “Is Emily my answer to prayer?”
A week later, I started training. But I started to get this feeling~
I’m going to be hired by a ship soon.
I had made a commitment to run the jewelry booth through January, but now I felt conflict rise up in my spirit.
What if a ship should send for me now? Would I abandon her?
Manali had said, “Is Emily my answer to prayer?” She was not a Christian, and she knew I was. So the stakes were even higher than normal to do right.
“Whoever falsely boasts of giving is like clouds and wind without rain. ”
“Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain?
The one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from their heart...
who keeps an oath even when it hurts, and does not change their mind”
I determined that if I were to receive a cruise contract now, for the Christmas season, I would refuse to take it. I could try again in the new year.
But do you know what happened after I had firmly settled that wrestling match of the soul?
Manali called me. Something had changed. She didn’t need me anymore. I was released from my oath.
Instead, I took a job at the same Winter market, with some French brothers. (They were the guys running the whole market.)
I told them, “At present, I am expecting to leave town. I can’t promise to be here all season.”
They said, “We shall take what you can offer!”
So I worked for them, turning crepes under twinkle lights, while carols jubilantly proclaimed the coming of a Savior King.
Oh, the fun we had!
In mid-November, I got an urgent interview invitation: Kid’s Counselor on big ship.
But when the appointment time came, I could not log into the interview. I tried and tried, but failed and failed! An automated rejection email hit my inbox after ten minutes had gone by without me managing to get on the call.
But the hiring manager received an email from me, too, which explained persuasively:
“Yo... STRUGGLES.”
She immediately replied,
“Yo, It’s fine. I’ll FaceTime you.”
And when she saw my face, she said,
“I AM SO HAPPY TO MEET YOU, YOU ARE AMAZING!”,
and started rattling off all these accomplishments listed on the resume in front of her- which were not mine.
With just a slight feeling of horror, I interrupted her and said:
“Ok, listen, I have to stop you right there. That is NOT my resume. :(
…I’m awesome, too! But…
just.. not in the way that THAT GIRL is awesome.”
After an awkward pause, the hiring manager found my resume- and she agreed- I was awesome, too!
She didn’t judge how I had run screaming from my last company. She didn’t mind I wasn’t that girl she thought she was calling. In the end, she really did love me for me. She sent me a job contract a few hours later.
A picture from the end of the USA-Iran World Cup match, just to illustrate what happy-victorious looks like :)
The only thing was, the contract started on November 30th.
Sure, my French bosses were prepared for me to make an Irish exit, but Lenore the cat could not say the same. She was counting on me to feed her and sit quietly near her on December 3rd!
MOREOVER, Cordelia’s December 10th birthday party had been well-inked on my calendar for months. God brought these things to my mind, asking me, what would I do about them?
Cancelling was way too easy a temptation. Cordelia would understand, I knew she would. But the Holy Spirit kept challenging that line of thinking.
You didn’t even ask the question… was His prompt… You haven’t even tried to find another way. Why?
I was scared to write to the only ship company that actually wanted me, to say,
“Actually, can I come work 2 weeks later?”
Because, I knew, they were hiring me in a pinch- for an urgent need.
The logical reason I could be the girl for this job was largely this: I was available!
I thought, it would be audacious to ask this. I thought, they will certainly say a big fat no.
But the Holy Spirit kept nudging me. He was telling me, my first responsibility was to my friend. He was telling me, jobs don’t rank above people.
So I wrote an email asking for permission to delay my assignment. And after twenty-four hours and forty-one minutes, it was granted. There was ONE other opening I could fill, leaving on December the 12th.
Wouldn’t you know. :)
My contract was rewritten, and my flights were reissued. I got to give 2 extra weeks of crepe-making to the Frenchmen, and I got to celebrate the holidays, hardcore, with EVERYONE.
On December 10th, I was tying loose ends like MAD.
Between gathering the essentials on my Caribbean packing list (suncreen! seasickness pills!), moving out of Dustin & Grace’s, picking up my last paycheck from the market, and handing off my car to Rupert for safekeeping, I was pressed for time.
But Joy was adamant that I should come see her for a minute in Brighton.
She was like, “Yes, yes, I get it, I know you don’t have time! Just come for 5 minutes.”
So I did.
I stood at Joy’s door in the snow for a while (because she said, “just a minute”- and for Joy, a minute isn’t so rigidly defined.) I was shaking and shivering, and praying, because, love is weird, until she came outside. She gave me the gift she had been wrapping while I stood on the steps, and told me,
“Do not open until December 25th.”
She was sending me off with a stack of letters, and a teeny, tiny wooden tree to put up in my cabin. She wanted to give me as much of the love and joy of Christmas as I could carry.
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”
That night at Cordelia’s soirée, we drank coconutty-Christmas cocktails, lovingly crafted by mixologist Dan. We snacked on sugar-dredged Chex mix, and we toasted our grown friend, making sweet and hilarious plans to grow older and older and older, together. Shelby played through a hymnbook of Christmas songs at the piano. We indulged in the traditional 11th hour mac and cheese. I fell asleep, for just a little while in the guest bed, my luggage beside me, the hours ticking down until my flight to another new life.
I woke up after the party had dwindled to just us- the ex-roommates. It might have been midnight when our Haley and Kurtis bustled in from the cold to complete our gang. We were all so sleepy, but with the people it’s easiest to be sleepy with. We stole every minute we could from tomorrow. Then at last they sent me off into the Winter wind- my heart warm as a yuletide fire beneath the puffy down of my coat.
Stepping with sandaled feet along the beaches of the Bahamas, I felt like a runaway, stripping off the weight of the year gone by.
My new company had assembled basically a troupe of Christmas elves- from Kenya, South Africa, Portugal, Mexico and USA.
Even on the plane- instantly!- everyone seemed already to be making friends and making plans.
But I wasn’t there yet.
“I want to be with you”, I told the girls who were already calling my name, “but I need some down time. I’ll catch up with you soon.”
That I would- because we would be “making Christmas!” We would be wrapping hundreds of gifts, singing carols up and down halls, and decking them, too. I would be praying for my team, and praying with them- as naturally as breathing.
I couldn’t envision any of that in the moment, of course. God’s plans are always greater, wackier, and specialer than can be imagined. And he doesn’t mind if we don’t always run, but sometimes just take a good nap.
“To him who by means of his power working in us is able to do so much more than we can ever ask for, or even think of: to God be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus for all time, forever and ever! Amen.”
My team ended up being an all-women team- rare and nice beyond telling. The night we gathered to exchange our secret Santa gifts was like a silver bow tying up our happy season. Sipping wine carefully and quietly in the closed library, each gift-giver listed out noble attributes of the recipient of her gift. Before the boxes were even opened, bounteous, heartfelt praise had filled us with appreciation for each other.
Sandra’s boyfriend had booked this cruise to be with her for Christmas, and he was sitting beside her, admittedly an odd addition to our festivities. I asked him, “Have you ever heard so many women giving each other so much praise and honor like this?
He shook his head, a big, dumbfounded no.
“I don’t understand what is happening.”
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
This contract I signed was for 3 weeks, but it had seemed better to me to pack for 5 months. Because I reasoned, “I will persuade them to keep me.”
I asked my friends to pray to that effect, and sure enough, not many days after I came on board, an extension was tacked onto my assignment. At the end of the 3 weeks, I would be transferred to a sister ship, to continue sailing until 3 days shy of May. Thank you, Jesus.
Every place, and every day of the year… the gifts of God are so many! Sometimes I feel just like Sandra’s boyfriend in the library… I don’t understand what’s happening! Yet for all of God’s unbridled goodness, He, Himself is still the best Gift by far… no rival, no equal. Not even two whole months of Christmas can contain the rejoicing that calls for. :)
Epilogue
On the night of December 31st, 2022, I was again holding pen and notebook in hand. This time, I was not in a restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but rolling on waves in the West Indies. I was hosting a trivia night for teenagers- and I knew just the ice breaker question to ask each one.
What were you doing at EXACTLY this time, one year ago?” :)
“Who can proclaim the mighty acts of the Lord, or fully declare his praise?”
In one year, God had paid all the debt I had been struggling under for so long. (Actually he handled that in just a few months. What was impossible for me, he accomplished with artist’s flair and almighty ease.)
I had asked for “the blessing of the Lord that brings wealth (without painful toil). He answered my prayer with dollars, yes. But with far more than dollars. Because God’s concern for us has to do with matters far deeper than paper money. His desire is for us to grow to maturity. His desire is for us to be faithful. And most of all, his desire is that we will know the object of our faith… Him!
Do you know what astonished me every single month of this year? It was how often I was paid to read the Bible.
At the tavern, when things were slow and I made $3 an hour, no tips, because the place was totally empty? I was reading the Bible. I was copying verses onto paper from the till. I was preaching the gospel to the team while we all found ourselves in this season of fallow ground.
When I was hired by that fancy cruise company and put on salary but asked to wait through construction delays? I was reading the Bible- sometimes 9-5! I was sitting with God, eating up his wisdom, and marveling at his ways… so much higher than my ways.
In the strange stillness of Fall, I was gathering up promises from the scriptures… praying over Salem as I led crowds of people on my “ghost tours”… people who were hungry for the Spirit of God… eager for the certainty of life beyond the grave.
I found I had an abundance of wealth- a wealth of friends and a wealth of peace in hard times. I was wealthy in health and the ability to deeply sleep. I had the wealth of love and hope- to fail and to fall and to try. And now once again, God has placed me in a job where I can have all the riches of time with him. I don’t have to cook, I don’t have to clean! I just have to choose the good part… the one thing that is needed.
There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Luke 10:42
And now, is this all God will do?
Nope.
Even though I don’t deserve what he has already done… even though he’s already so successfully amazed me, caps aren’t his way. He doesn’t max out on caring. And it’s really best we do not presume to try to limit him.
“What shall I return to the LORD for all his goodness to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and praise the LORD’s name for saving me.”
What can we give to God, indeed?
We can give him our faith. We can believe him. And we can give him our thanks, and tell our stories… as best as we can.
As MUCH as I have written here about a year under his favor… it’s not all there is to tell. I have to concede, I won’t ever be able to declare all the praises of God… even for only what my two little eyes have seen. But I hope that what I can’t say with words, will be displayed in my whole, transformed being.
As for what I can say, let me say with a shout.
The Lord has saved me. He has saved me from all my troubles. He has saved me completely. And His love is better than life.
previously-
part 8- October: A Time to Mourn
part 1- Diary of a year of favor: January: The Money Runs Out