"This world is the scene of our trials, our griefs, our sorrows. We are here to bear the test of God. The fire of the furnace is to kindle till our dross is consumed and we come forth as gold purified in the furnace of affliction. . . . Light will come out of this darkness which to you at times seems incomprehensible. "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21).
Let this be the language of your heart. The cloud of mercy is hovering over your head even in the darkest hour. God's benefits to us are as numerous as the drops of rain falling from the clouds upon the parched earth to water and refresh it. The mercy of God is over you." {HP 272.3}
Starting in October, 2002 became a change in the company I was working for. Overnight it was as if darkness overcame them. In how they were treating us, not just me we were seeing and experiencing a world far removed from what we had kown.
The company I had worked for nine years sold their business to the now company I had been working for three years. On October 15th, 2002 I was called into the office of my now new boss who was to oversee my work. I had been working with her along with my previous boss over these years.
She spoke to me of the changes that were to take place. One of those changes was the hours we could work. This was to affect one important situation in my life.
She said to me that I was going to have to choose between my job and my faith. That I had to work to 5PM even during the winter if I wanted to keep my job. That would mean that I would have to work during the beginning of my Sabbath on Friday for four months of the year.
I do not remember all I said at that meeting, but I do remember my closing words. I said: "I have no choice, I must keep the Sabbath of my God, it is you that must choose whether to keep me and let me keep my Sabbath or give me my pink slip."
Days followed and the situation at work got worse. They let me keep my Sabbath, they let me keep my hearing service dog Moshe with me at work, but these were not easy days for me.
The stress, the harassment that was to follow were days of darkness that I will never forget. On top of that illness set in from it all with the conclusion of more of my hearing to be lost in that even with a hearing aid voices sound muffled to me now.
I went on medical leave in hopes that I would recover enough to return to work. The hearing has not returned therefore making it impossible for me to communication in the manner I was able to before with the hearing I did have. Along with other medical issues rising I have not been able to return to work.
So my life has changed forever. As a disabled person I had pride myself for having worked all these years, but no more.
Yet events since the time I have stopped working have shown the hand of God working in my life. Years ago a friend came into my life that I would say we are closer than I am to my own blood sister in that we have loved each other as friends all these years.
When she heard of my situation she asked me to move to where she lived and that she would put a new manufactured home on her property for me to live in. We have gone through that process and as I look back at all that has happened, how people have bent over backwards to help us make this possible I see the hand of God working through people in my behalf.
Soon I will be moving to a new place far from where I live now. With a new puppy along with my current hearing service dog, he will be trained as a hearing service dog as well.
There have been so many little blessings since that dark time I cannot even begin to write it all here. Joy fills my heart at the goodness of God.
I pray for the people who made such darkness come over my life. Perhaps the testimony of my faithfulness of the Sabbath will someday spark a light into their hearts that God's Law cannot be changed, altered or denied.
Liane
