After nine different jobs over fifteen years, after seven periods of unemployment, after working at four crazy, chaotic Private Equity takeovers, after earning a CPA in my forties, I had finally hit my ultimate career goal in 2018. I was a Chief Financial Officer.

And I was not happy.

And I was very depressed.

A couple of big triggers fueled the depression. One trigger that I feel comfortable discussing was my past periods of unemployment. Although I had the most stable job in two decades, the emotions from my past job history finally came to the surface. I had very deep wounds that I needed to heal, that I didn’t even know I needed to heal. There were very dark, emotional days during those seven periods of unemployment; the longest period was a very prolonged year. There were times that I prayed, “Heavenly Father, I’m failing. Just take me home. I can’t do this anymore.” This is something I haven’t talked or spoken much about. My generation was taught to “just suck it up.” I probably should have gone to therapy to work this out. Every time I was unemployed, I woke up on day one of job hunting and worked to find a new job. I kept pushing down and pushing down those feelings of failure, fear, depression, anxiety, weakness, and anger. I had emotional scar tissue on top of emotional scar tissue that had to be cleaned, and I didn’t even know it. Those feelings finally bubbled to the surface in 2018, ironically, when I was employed in a very secure job.

I had two “drugs” to cure this depression: guzzling diet soda (Mtn. Dew was my specialty) and binge-watching Netflix. During the week when I worked, I also lived in La Habra Heights, Los Angeles County in a rented room in a house. The house and the room were old, the carpet was deeply stained, the paint was cracked, bubbling, peeling, the shower didn’t work right, it was small, and the sweet lady who was my landlord never turned on the heat; I could see my breath when I walked down the hallway. I bought a space heater for the room, but it blew out the electricity when I turned it on — the wiring was too old.

Somehow, one night, wrapped in 3 to 4 layers of clothes and blankets, feeling depressed and displaced from my home in San Diego, I heard a very distinct voice in my head that said, “Larry, if you come to me, I can heal you.”

Thus began a process of healing and coming to know Christ as I had never known Him before. I had read all the stories, I had gone to church, served a mission for my church, served in a lot of church jobs, read my scriptures, and did what I was supposed to do. But, somehow, that was the beginning of a very real relationship with Christ.

To quote Tad R. Callister, “The Atonement of Christ does not just cleanse us, it also consoles us. It gives us life for death, beauty for ashes, healing for hurt, and perfection for weaknesses. It is heaven’s antidote to the obstacles and struggles of this world.”

I love the term “beauty for ashes,” which comes from Isaiah 61.  At one point, I prayed, “Dear God, I hope you can somehow use all of this …. failure.” And the answer to that prayer was, “Keep trying, keep working, have faith, and one day you’ll look back and see the beauty from ashes.”   Looking back, out of the ashes of this job chaos has come a changed person … more proactive, more grateful, more patient, more faithful, more tolerant, more understanding, more loving, more resilient, and less judgmental. God did a hard “re-boot” of my brain through these experiences.

I’d love to tell you that I had one of those Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus experiences where my anxiety just went “poof,” and everything turned to unicorns and rainbows. Instead, it’s been a process. I take two steps forward and one step back. The next day, I take two steps back and one forward. The next day, I took 5 steps back. The next day, I took 7 steps forward. If you’re following the math, the net of all that is about 2 steps forward. But it’s still progress.

This is my journey. These blogs are my story of God turning ashes into beauty. These are my “Songs in the Key of His Grace.”

The artwork is called “Talitha” and is used by permission from Eva Koleva Timothy