Most of you know that Jonathan has been employed at Cummins for 9 plus years. You may also know that in December they cut 600 jobs and we were "sweating it" then, but Jonathan survived. In January, they announced that they would be cutting 800 more jobs starting February 1st. Again, we were all nervous and concerned about Jonathan losing his job. Times are tough everywhere, but especially at Cummins.
Jonathan had some red flags last week that made him worry even more. His boss scheduled a "one on one" meeting with him on Wednesday morning at 9am. They always had a weekly meeting on Friday so Jonathan figured this would be bad news.
On Sunday night, our pastor, Brother Nathan Shockley, preached an excellent message talking about "taking a leap of faith into the unknown!" On the way home from church, Jonathan looked at me and said, "That message was for me...I'm done at Cummins."
Then several times throughout this week, he kept hearing a song by his favorite singer, Ivan Parker, titled "I'll do the miracle." Again, he felt this was a sign from God to put his trust in Him and was preparing himself for the worst.
Yesterday morning, at 9am, Jonathan walked up to his bosses desk for their meeting and his boss said he wanted to "take this somewhere else!" Jonathan said he knew right then it was coming. They walked in silence down the long hallway to the front of the building, into a designated room, and sat down. His boss began to read him a manuscript and proceeded to tell him that he would no longer be employed by Cummins due to major economical cut backs. They asked for his badge, company credit card, laptop computer, uniforms, and anything else that might belong to Cummins. His boss walked him back to his desk to grab his coat and proceeded to walk him out of the doors of Cummins for the last time. As his boss was telling him goodbye, he became choked up and told Jonathan that he was very sorry and wished him and his family nothing but the best.
At 9:24am, the home phone rang and the caller ID stated it was "Jonathan's Cell." I dreaded answering it because I knew it wasn't going to be good news. Jonathan had told me if he called from his desk, things were okay, but if he called me from his cell phone, he'd been walked out! The first words out of his mouth were "I'm done." What a terrible feeling, I felt so helpless and there was nothing I could say or do that could make things better for him.
The kids broke our hearts at lunch as each one of them said their routine prayers, they all prayed to "help Daddy to find a job!" We didn't tell them to say that, but they just did it on their own. Of course, that made me cry all over again. They did it again at supper too! (I don't know how much of that I can take!)
Jonathan has been employed full-time since he turned 16 years old. He isn't one that enjoys sitting at home and especially when it involves babysitting 24/7 either!!! He's already sent his resume to two different companies and is trying to make connections to find a job as soon as possible. He did get a severance package, but that won't last long.
Please pray for him and our family that God will work something out and that he will be able to find the "right" job. Jonathan has a very positive attitude, much more that I probably would if it were me, and I know that God is helping him deal with this.
(He has no idea I'm posting this and may make me delete this when he sees it, but I thought all my blogger friends would want to know what's going on in our lives this week.) It won't be easy but with God's help, we will survive. I would love for you all to help us pray about Jonathan getting a job, and that God will work something out that will glorify Him!