Before going further with my story, I feel I should share a short background story.

During the summer of 2003 I had a good job and, in fact, had just been offered a promotion. I worked for a state agency with good benefits. The department that I worked in was about to start the “busy season.” Our department was responsible for consolidating financial information from all of the state agencies and presenting it in the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report for the State.

What that means is that as the state’s fiscal year came to a close in August, we started answering a lot of questions from other state agencies and helping them get the financial information ready to send to us.

Although what we did is not all that important, what is important is that from August through the end of March we were extremely busy and worked long hours. There were not many days off and while we did get a few days at Christmas and Thanksgiving off, there was no asking for extra time off. We understood that we got to enjoy our time off between April and July.

One day towards the end of July I was sitting at my desk when the phone rang. It was someone that I had worked with in a previous position and had not talked to since I left. He asked me if I would be interested in talking about a job opportunity.  The job was not posted, but when he heard about it, he thought he should reach out to me. Wow. That was flattering.

The job would be working for a school district. I had worked at a school district before and since I had kids in school it was appealing. I enjoyed having the same holidays as my family.

I went to the interview. A few days later I was offered the job.

It was decision time. Do I take the job offer or do I take the promotion that I had just been given?

After discussing the options with my husband, we decided that having the same holidays as my kids, including the two weeks at Christmas,  was the better option for our family.

I began working at the school district the first week of August and less than two months later was the day my life changed.

I share this part of the story with you because I truly believe that God had a hand in my circumstances. Not that I think my cancer was caused by God, but because God saw what was happening and was able to put me in a situation that would make the next six months much easier.

You will see as the rest of my story unfolds how important it was for me to work in a setting that would not require long days and no time off.

How many time in your life do you get a phone call from someone you haven’t talked to in two years, telling you that they know the perfect job for you?