A Difficult Decision Made Easy

 by Student Bob Bonvallet

“I will lead the blind by ways they have not known,

Along unfamiliar paths I will guide them.

I will turn the darkness into light before them

And make the rough places smooth.

These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.”

Isaiah 42:16

Perhaps some of you can relate to this situation, which happened to me several years ago. You are in a comfortable if rather boring job which you have held for many years. The job pays well and generally doesn’t require you to work all that hard. The company is having financial difficulty and has recently laid off many people, but not you, not yet. One day they announce a voluntary “early retirement package” which would require you to retire immediately but would enhance your pension which you would begin to collect right away. Your pension would be roughly one-third of your current salary. You want to continue working, but if you turn down their “early retirement” offer you risk being laid off and ineligible to collect any pension at all for several years. The job market in your field is terrible. You have exactly one month to decide whether to accept or reject the early retirement package. Your decision will be final. A difficult decision, right?

What would you do?

After considerable thought and indecision, I decided I would turn down the offer primarily because the job market was so terrible and because I just didn’t feel like going through the hassle of interviewing for a new job. I didn’t want to abruptly give up my comfortable routine combined with a good paycheck in exchange for an unknown future. Perhaps I was in denial about the entire situation. And that was that. Until it wasn’t.

One day as I was sitting alone in my office with nobody around, I heard a voice from outside myself, urging me to take the retirement package. The experience was brief yet powerful, unlike anything I had experienced before. I immediately decided I would obey.

From that moment on my mind was made up and nothing could change it. I accepted the voluntary retirement package, left the company, applied for jobs, went on some interviews, and discovered for myself how tough the job market was. My job search would last a full year, during which I sometimes questioned my decision to retire.

During that year I worked at a few part-time jobs, including one at a local tutoring center where I helped high school students who were struggling in their math classes. I found that job to be unexpectedly appealing and it certainly put my degrees in math and statistics to good use. Among the students I tutored were two whom I helped prepare for the entrance exam at a local private, religious high school. I learned more about the school and liked what I learned. Next thing I knew, I applied for a job at that school and was hired as a full-time teacher because my degree in statistics, combined with some long-ago experience teaching statistics while I was in graduate school, were exactly what they were looking for at the time. The timing was perfect.

I am now celebrating my 20th anniversary of service as a teacher at that school. After a challenging first year, I began to settle into my new role. It’s a difficult and time-consuming job, made more difficult by the pandemic. Every day presents new challenges. But I still find myself looking forward to every new day and whatever new adventures may come my way. My job as a teacher is much more rewarding than my previous position. The place where I teach is not just a school but a place of faith where classes begin with prayer and communion is celebrated regularly. I have chosen to stay there much longer than I had ever planned, not for the money, but because I feel I belong there. And I feel that I will know when it is time to leave.

Sadly, the company where I used to work was bought out by another company and all the people I knew from there have left or were forced to leave. Today I have absolutely no doubt that I was guided to make the correct decision all those years ago.

In looking back at the curious chain of events and ‘coincidences’ that led me to my current situation, I have come to believe that God has a plan for our lives and that we will receive guidance from God every step of the way if only we will listen for it. Our life journeys will involve difficulties, but we must continue to trust God at every step. In the words of one of my favorite prayers, by Saint Teresa of Avila, “May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.”