Thoughts: Hannah's Blog

It was the year 2008. I had just passed out of Engineering with distinction and a job in hand. Every Engineer’s dream maybe? After all, placements are the main reason we enter into Engineering college for! But it was also the year that recession hit, I hadn’t even begun to understand what it means. Heard that the companies who recruited us, were not willing to give us joining dates, none of my batchmates were getting called. That’s when reality hit me hard, the road wasn’t going to be smooth after all. The future which once looked bright and shiny, started looking bleak and blurry.

Many of my friends moved to Chennai to look for other jobs so I headed there. We applied all around- registered in online sites, tried referrals (must have forwarded my resume to nearly 50 people) nothing happened! Most of the time when we were called for interview, it was for some consultancy where we have to pay some money to get a job which was not guaranteed. This went on for months, meanwhile the companies which had taken us in bulk from college placements, started calling us in batches. First batch 5, then 7 in a gap of 4 months, sometimes 7 months! It was erratic and we’d never know when we would be called.

It was during that uncertain time of waiting that I seriously started thinking about life, God and his will for my life. Every Sunday I used to take sermon notes and during the week, meditate on those as I was alone and had nothing to do while my sis went to office. That regular reading/meditating on His word helped me. God’s word in Romans 8 spoke to me a lot: when I knew not what to pray for, His promises sustained me, encouraged me and gave me hope. Especially this one:

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. – Romans 8:28 (NLT)

I believed that God had a plan and purpose for my life and God is Sovereign, He is able to turn everything around – even the seemingly bad things to good for me. As I continued to wait, (sitting jobless) my mom gave an ultimatum: “join a job before this academic year gets over or else go do Masters”. Doing Masters had not even entered my head, I thought studying Engineering for four years itself was too much, forget spending two more years! Also I didn’t want to cause any additional financial burdens. But I started preparing for GATE, if I scored well there there was a possibility of getting stipend in the college I join, I wrote the exam, cleared by God’s grace. There was mixed feelings about my score – I was overwhelmed with the score God gave me because I knew that I was not capable of getting it. Others said that I may not get into a good college with my score. But finally as per God’s plan, I got into PSG Tech for ME Software Engineering.

After I finished my first Semester, there was a call from the company that recruited me from college. They had called me after a year and a half! By then there was no turning back. It might seem as if I wasted a year, like I was running around aimlessly or maybe running in some wrong direction and God allowed a pause, so I could focus on Him and He could redirect me to the way that He wanted me to go, the way that is best for me, which I did not understand back then. I would not be where I am now if I had not paused that one year, so I wouldn’t call it as a waste but a Pause maybe.