Bruce and his rage

I knew Tuesday's job expo was going to be packed and it didn't surprise me when it became gridlocked 20 minutes after the start. There are a lot of people looking for work. Companies are downsizing, closing, and casting off employees. It's rough out there.

In the past 8 years, I've been out of work twice, once for 8 months, most recently for almost 4. I know the creeping worry one encounters when phone calls aren't returned, resumes disappear into black holes, and the doors remain closed and locked. There were times when I'd be driving somewhere and all of a sudden I'd look in the rear view mirror at myself and say "I don't have a job".

Bruce came by the JobNoggin.com booth about an hour into the expo. I asked if he'd seen the site and he told me he didn't have a computer. How about the library? No, it's always too crowded, was his reply. I asked him what kind of work he was looking for and he looked at me with a mixture of anger and frustration I haven't seen in a long, long time. No one calls back, there aren't any jobs anymore.

He was in manufacturing for 27 years. He sweated and toiled for companies and had been tossed on the scrap heap to fend for himself. It wasn't going well. He was scraping by on $9 an hour and was suffering the indignity of looking for work that, as he told it, didn't exist.

I know frustration and desperation but Bruce had the added component of a burning anger borne of rage against the machine that had let him down. For every suggestion I had, he had an angry answer. Still, he was there and he was looking. He hadn't got to the point where he stopped. Along with his resume, he brought a lot of anger to the expo.

I don't scare easily any more---but Bruce chilled me. This was the kind of rage that leads people to lash out in violence and perform horrific things. As I stood with him and looked over his messy resume that explained his professional life, I caught the faint scent of what it was like when I was out of work and the sound of the mail truck dropping off mail was the highlight of my day.

"What am I supposed to do?" he asked me.

"You keep going" I said. "You keep going and you pray".

That caught him. For a second he looked at me with different eyes but just as quickly his hard shell returned and he sniffed dismissively. I know what he was thinking---God has abandoned me and this idiot wants me to pray? Easy for him to say, he's got a job. Things were busy at that point and Bruce drifted away. I made my way around the booths and began scouting for him as well. Each time I bumped into him, I tipped him to positions he might be interested in. "Yeah, I talked to them" he'd say, "they say they'll call back...but they won't." "Bruce" I said, "I'm praying for you. I have been since we talked. There's work out there."

He looked at me like I was nuts--some religious nut giving him a quick pat on the back and an offer of prayer. Maybe he'd heard it all before, but I wasn't going to do that. He's been on my mind and in my prayers since then.

Oh, the hurt and rage in this world. We're not going to escape it, are we? We're going to hear it, feel it, see it, and experience it---but we are going to MEET IT with the knowledge that we are sustained in ways beyond our understanding on this side of heaven. For those of us who hit choppy waters, we've got that GPS (God Positioning Spirit) unit that can reorient us to the right direction even in the midst of the most violent storm.

If your boat is in a storm right now and you're exhausted and bailing and scared and angry--remember that He won't forsake you. It might seem that way, but it's never going to happen. The book of the Bible that Jesus quoted from the most is Deuteronomy and it's worth reading the 31st chapter today. Yes, God was speaking to the Israelites about a different matter---but the message is the same.

He will never forsake you.