Gaps in the resume/CV

I know some people who have recently lost their jobs. I write this blog post with them in mind, along with any others who have transitioned into a new and uncertain chapter. I think most of us understand this uncertainty, whether or not we're unemployed, because of the pandemic affecting us all. My goal is simple: to encourage us. I recognise that everyone's circumstances are different, and that I have been fortunate to have had support from family and friends during the gaps in my employment. Also, while I write from a Christian perspective, I hope people of all faiths or none can find something helpful here. 

When I graduated from university, I expected I would easily find full-time work shortly afterwards. Although I did find part-time work here and there, and I was also busy with internship duties at a church, these were not enough to support myself long-term. That year of looking for full-time work often felt dry, like wandering through a desert. I found certain things helpful in keeping me going: gardening, for instance, and meeting regularly with friends and other folks from church. It helped to spend time with people in a similar situation as mine.

The next gap in my resume occurred after I graduated from seminary, when I lived at home with my parents while looking for work. Although I was thankful for their support and for a period of rest after a season of intense study and work, I also felt that ache of uncertainty and of not being able to support myself right away.

Again something that boosted me was the presence of friends and my church community. During this time, some of us from church had begun meeting every couple of weeks for a meal, and this routine gave me something to look forward to. Eventually this morphed into a weekly Bible study where we learned and prayed together. These gatherings reminded me that there was more to life than my unemployment status.

My most recent season of being in-between jobs was when my wife and I decided to move out of a large city to settle in the countryside near family. It was the right decision for us, but it meant leaving meaningful work and a caring community behind and living with and looking after an elderly family member until we could support ourselves again.

I saw this as an opportunity to establish a rhythm that I had been unable to form in my previous work. This routine morphed, but it involved physical fitness (walking or running), praying, Bible reading and writing--all of which I tried to do regularly. I also resumed my latent desire for gardening. I saw myself as a kind of soldier or athlete training to be fit for God's use, and that chapter as a spiritual boot camp, as well as a retreat to gain a wider perspective on my life.

Job coaches usually advise us to gloss over or explain away the gaps in our CV so we don't look unproductive or questionable in our career development. This is useful advice, but on another level, such gaps have not been empty for me, but rather seasons of opportunity to encounter God more deeply and reconnect with what I consider most important.

These 'gaps' have also prepared me spiritually so that when I started working again, I could better hold onto what Jesus says is our priority, seeking God's kingdom and righteousness, assuring us that when we do this, God provides for our needs (see Matt. 6:25-34).

A year after leaving my meaningful job in the city, when my wife and I were more established again, I looked back on that transition as one of opening myself so that God could begin a new work in me. I also found the gap in St Columba's 'resume'--his self-exile from Ireland--a helpful model for what I had experienced.

St Columba had been a priest in Ireland, founding monastic communities and proclaiming the gospel. However, he became involved in a dispute that some say resulted in a tragic battle in which thousands died. Feeling partly responsible, he exiled himself from his native land, along with twelve of his followers.

They paddled east in a boat on the Irish Sea until they found an island worthy to become their home. The story goes that they settled on this island because there they could no longer see Ireland. However, it is also likely that, like other Celtic pilgrim-saints choosing their destinations, St Columba discerned that this was where God was leading him, the land where he would eventually die and await the day of the resurrection. There they established a monastic community, which would become the base from which St Columba and his monks would enlighten Scotland with the love and truth of Jesus Christ. This, if you don't already know, was the Isle of Iona, and the legacy of St Columba's work there endures even to this day.

Although St Columba's situation is unlike what we are facing today in most ways, it encourages me that even in uncertain times, when we have been released from one responsibility, God is still calling us--like he called St Columba, and like he calls all people--to wholly serve and follow him.

In this season we are in, what new work might God be doing in us for the sake of his kingdom?