Laid off but not let down

How one woman bounced back after being phased out.

By Nanette Leatherwood

For each of us, different circumstances in our lives may seem, at the time, to create a vacuum. We may have lost a loved one or been through a divorce. Maybe our children have grown up and left home, and don't seem to need us anymore. We might have lost our job or our business. For me, I recently felt such a vacuum when I was laid off from a job. This job was especially precious to me because it was with an organization to which I was deeply committed, and it had been the only instance in my life where I truly felt that I had found "my niche."

For many months I worked as a member of a team planning the reorganization of my department and the elimination of my own position as the department manager. I thought of the impending event as "the end of an era," "the demise of my department," "the end of my career." The purpose and fulfillment this job had brought to my life seemed to be gone, and I felt a bewildering blank—a terrible vacuum.

I was subject to frequent depression until I saw quite clearly that the depression was the result of my identifying myself in terms of my job. As a consequence, losing my job felt like losing my identity and my worth—and that's why I associated it so much with death. I was being forced to see clearly that my purpose and fulfillment are dependent on God, not on a particular job, and that my identity is spiritual, as the child of God.

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Laid off but not let down

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