The title is from Isaiah 43:19.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to get preachy (but if you would like to hear about Jesus just ask me!)  My wife had some dreams last year where she kept hearing these words, “Behold, I am doing a new thing”,  “Look, I’m doing something new!”   After those dreams, our life started to change.

I’ve been an avid pilot my whole adult life.  But since I’ve been convicted to scale down our lives I decided to sell my airplane and get into a more affordable type of aviation.   I couldn’t sell the plane no matter how much I lowered the price.  Then I crashed.  Not a bad crash mind you, in fact, I crash better than anyone I know.  (With apologies to Mel Gibson in Air America).  Only the landing gear was damaged but it was damaged beyond economical repair so the airplane was totaled by the insurance company.  I got more than I could have sold it for and with the sale of my hangar, I was able to retire all our consumer debt and put a sizable chunk away into savings.

“Behold, I Am doing a new thing”

Over the Fall, my autistic son became more violent.  To the point we had to call police and take him to ER multiple times.  Eventually we had to throw up our hands and turn to the county regional center who were able to find him a home to live in (because we couldn’t handle him any more).  This gave my wife and I the breathing room we needed to think this through.  I’m leaving a lot out for his privacy’s sake but bottom line is my wife was able to find him a new psychiatrist and get him on some medicine that actually works instead of making things worse.  He is now living in a group home about 2 miles from us and seems to be doing much better.  He wanted to move out anyway.  Now he has and we have respite from 23 years of raising an autistic boy and man.

“Behold, I Am doing a new thing”

Last week I get news that I am being laid off in 4 months.   Not just me, not just my group of 6 network admins, but the entire IT division in our corporation.  All of us from managers on down are being let go.  We also “get” to train our replacements in India.  But the silver lining is we also get a severance package so I should have full pay until mid-October some time.   This news would have been so much harder to take if my son were still living here, if I were trying to figure out how I was going to sell the airplane and hangar still.

“Behold, I Am doing a new thing”

Since my wife’s dreams all of the pieces of life have aligned to put us in a stronger position relative to losing my job.  A stronger position relative to pursuing my dream of living a full time traveling lifestyle.  I’m at a crossroads in life.  Do I do Life 2.0 and “do a new thing?”  I’m already applying to jobs that are in the field I’m qualified for.  But there is something nagging at the back of my brain to work with disable children and adults.  Do I do what I’ve always done and wait for that job to lay me off?  Or do I do a job that will really make a difference in someone’s life?

Maybe it’s time to do a new thing.

That’s the term Lockheed used when I worked there.  Whenever a program was cut the employees were declared surplus to company needs.  I guess this was supposed to help with our delicate psyches or something.   All through the 1990’s the buzzword was “outsourcing.”   A really nice way to say, “Hey, we really appreciate all the hard work you’ve put into the company but we’ve found we can pay people in other countries far less.”  I’ve seen lots of jobs at my present employer outsourced to overseas companies. Basically your job was given to someone overseas and then you were out the door.

Now there is a new term; “co-sourcing.”  As best I can this means, “We need you to train your overseas replacement and THEN you go out the door.”  So, for the next few months I will be doing my part to train my replacement at a company overseas until early August.  Now, the company is being as nice about it as they can be, offering a fairly generous severance package and the usual grief counseling.  It’s still rather a shock and a surprise.

So why don’t I feel worse about it?  Maybe because I won’t be on-call anymore?  Maybe this is a good opportunity to finally change careers?  I have to say God has been preparing me for this in ways I didn’t even realize.  About 3 months ago I suddenly felt the need to find my son a place to live outside our home.  It wasn’t just the fact that he was getting violent, it was just time.  God also placed in in my heart to pare down the number of our possessions.  I believed it was for living full-time in an RV but as He usually does, it was also in preparation for something else.  So we’re going to continue in pare-down mode and keep trying to “downsize” our lives.

There are a lot of things to think about such as medical coverage, prescriptions and such.  But we’re pretty sure God has already handled that for us.  We’ll see what it is when the time comes.  I have employment until the first week of August.  After that the world is wide open.  I’ve got several ideas but one thing I’m not going to do like when I got laid off from the bank; I’m not going to panic this time.  God loves me and He certainly loves my family.  He will provide a way for us and I’m anxious to see what that is.