All I heard was a loud crash coming from my right direction. So, I turned my head in that direction and saw a black car one metre away from me. On the front seat were two faces, both stunned and pale.
It was the most depressing time in my life. Being in England for a year and three months without a career was too much to bear. Educated, with a satisfactory record and respected at home, yet there I was, feeling so unemployable and rejected.
I came to England to join my husband more than a year ago. Leaving the country of birth does not only mean leaving behind the family and time-tested friends. It also means turning my back on a well-built career and well-managed professional/social contacts that establish status in the community.
Loving and starting a family is exhilarating. It is a sure welcomed novelty in my thirty-nine years of scholastic works, academic pursuits and social services. But I wasn’t prepared for its downside. Although I fitted perfectly in my husband’s heart, I didn’t in his country. The satisfying employment wagon had no space for me. My academic qualifications were snubbed by the system.
For my first eight months, all I managed to achieve was the position of a production operative in Bantex. A school director in the Philippines, a binder-maker in UK. Then I started crying at nights. So we moved from our little town to a city. With high hopes, we thought there would be more opportunities here. I toiled on for another two months. Each day, I was getting hopeless. On the third month, I got a job. Frustratingly, it was as a part time checkout girl at Tescos. I sent more applications and received more rejections.
People in church didn’t see my dilemma. Perhaps, for them I was just a regular believer
to welcome every Sabbath. The welcome gesture seemed more like a ‘ritual’ than an initial contact to sustain brotherhood. So I stopped going and succumbed to self-pity.
Outside, I appeared strong and coping. Inside, I was struggling to stay alive. It was only during late afternoons when my husband would come home from work that I can genuinely smile and on my monthly long distance calls to my family that I can heartily laugh.
Then I got a call from a government support service office. After interviews and tests, I was hired as a part-time language assistant. Hope sprung. But it was a delicate hope. The job entailed that I should travel 15 miles to and from school 3 days a week and spend £20 a day for bus fare if my husband can’t drive me to and pick me up from work. Aside from this I had to put up with people in the assigned schools whose perspective of coloured people is always inferior to them.
One day, I just wanted to stop. It was a burdensome day but we were instructed to attend training at the main centre. During the training, I was fidgety because the information discussed didn’t sink in anymore. After the two and a half-hours of discomfort, I immediately called for a cab to pick me up. All I wanted was to disappear from everyone’s view. Adding injury to discomfort, the cab didn’t arrive for unknown reasons. After an hour of waiting, I started walking. I never felt so alone in my life than at that time. I heard my self sobbing, but there were no tears.
After a mile of walking, I saw my husband’s car on the other side of the street. It was like a mirage because my sobbing was deafening me. In a daze, I started crossing the street towards him. Then in full view of my husband, the car crash happened. The black car had to make a sudden hard brake to avoid hitting me and the car that followed crashed into the back of it. The lights and the windows turned into a shower of crystals. Suddenly, I became silent and my tears just flowed out.
God made me see the gift of life.
Coming to earth from His kingdom to live a human life must be depressing for Him.
In heaven, He was king, on earth, a carpenter’s son. He left behind not just the Father and His loyal angels but also His deity and glory. Living life on earth must be exhilarating to Him too, as He became a part of a loving human family and formed strong friendships with His disciples and followers. But human nature is frail that He had to offer His life to give it spiritual strength and chance.
After all, living in your country of birth is not all easy. Living in a foreign country wouldn't be easier then. Striving just comes in different forms. But with God’s life as reference, there will always be hope in each struggle.
