Detour: Outliving Termination

By Mike Hawkins

My life story is much like a long trip. Two years ago I was terminated from a position that I had held for 18 years. The ensuing journey was replete with twists and turns, doubts, and what appeared on the surface to be dead-end streets. Although from the beginning I had a familiar voice guiding me, I wrestled for control.
The genesis for this book came from the journals that I kept during those two years. Inscribing those bits of my life onto scraps of paper somehow helped me separate the sense from the nonsense. Woven together, those pieces of my life provide little more than one person’s experiences and responses. I did not quilt them together in this book for more than that.
This book is not a “how-to” manual for surviving termination. I cannot nor would I even try to give answers to anyone else. I can only share my insights and my understandings. This book is not a montage of what it means to lose a job—although I considered that line as a subtitle at one point. My publisher kindly pointed out that when someone loses a job, he or she knows exactly what it means; no one needs to elaborate on those details.
This is not a book with a beginning or an end. I am on a journey, and this book represents only one leg of the trip. Life cannot be segmented. Experiences like dominoes affect other experiences. Moments build on other moments and life happens.
What then is my purpose, my hope in this book? First, I want to befriend those who have been hurt by termination. When I was fired, I tried, without much luck, to find resources—books, people—that could relate to my questions, doubts, and fears. I just needed to know that someone else had experienced at least some of the things that I was battling. That commonality alone would have inspired me when I was so desperate for something. My hope is that if you have lost your job, you find that thread of sameness in this book, and that for a moment that bond lifts your spirits.
More importantly, I hope this book demonstrates God’s guidance in my life. In each chapter, I try to share honestly with you as I struggled with questions and with control. The process is not an easy one. Notice that I use the present tense. I am still searching for answers; I am still seeking His direction. Now, however, I am confident in the navigation system. In my case, GPS is an acronym for God’s Positioning System, and I am confident that His data is current, and He has a plan for me.
Ultimately, my hope in this book is that if you do not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you will open your heart to Him. The Gospel of Jesus Christ offers the freedom and joy and security and peace that move the barricades aside when the sign says “Dead End".

• Language: English
• Publisher: Father's Press
• Release date: Apr 15, 2011

Mike Hawkins

Mike Hawkins has been an ordained minister for over 25 years. He has served as pastor for three Baptist churches in Missouri and as an adjunct professor for Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Missouri, and Midwestern Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri. From those schools, he earned three degrees: a Bachelor of Arts, Master of Divinity, and a Doctor of Ministry. Currently, he is the interim pastor at the New Home Baptist church in Camdenton, Missouri, and works as a flagman on a road construction crew. He and his wife Elisa have two daughters, Kristen and Kelsey, and one son Cody, who passed away at the age of 13. He and his family live in southwest Missouri.

Book preview

PREFACE

I recently traveled with my brother-in-law John from Missouri to South Carolina. My father had just passed away, and we were hurrying to join the rest of the family. Unsure of the route, John programmed our destination into the GPS. He entered the address and then simply tapped the word Go.

This trip was my first encounter with a navigation system. Initially, the map, the moving icons, and voice that prompted our every turn intrigued me. As we moved farther and farther into unknown territory, however, I was more than a little reluctant to relinquish direction to some-thing without multiple folds and not spread over half the front seat. I recall one point in the trip in particular, when I lost all confidence. We were off the main highway and the anonymous, mono-tone voice was guiding us through a maze of roads. As I watched the little triangle maneuver through the dots and lines on the 5x7 screen, the voice insisted, Turn left on Alcott, continue approximately .5 miles and veer right. Continue on the current road for. On and on she droned with absolute authority. John followed every direction as I argued at each turn that the lady didn’t know what she was doing. Finally, we came to a sign that read Dead End. I puffed up a little and boasted to John, See, I knew we were lost. He ignored my I-told-you-so comment and continued on the current road. I couldn’t believe it. What must have been a dead-end street just days earlier was now open. Cement barricades had been moved to the side and had opened the path to the highway—the major highway we were to travel.

My life story is much like that trip. Two years ago I was terminated from a position that I had held for 18 years. The ensuing journey was replete with twists and turns, doubts, and what appeared on the surface to be dead-end streets. Although from the beginning I had a familiar voice guiding me, I wrestled for control.

The genesis for this book came from the journals that I kept during those two years. In-scribing those bits of my life onto scraps of paper somehow helped me separate the sense from the nonsense. Woven together, those pieces of my life provide little more than one person’s experiences and responses. I did not quilt them together in this book for more than that.

This book is not a how-to manual for surviving termination. I cannot nor would I even try to give answers to anyone else. I can only share my insights and my understandings.

This book is not a montage of what it means to lose a job—although I considered that line as a subtitle at one point. My publisher kindly pointed out that when someone loses a job, he or she knows exactly what it means; no one needs to elaborate on those details.

This is not a book with a beginning or an end. I am on a journey, and this book represents only one leg of the trip. Life cannot be segmented. Experiences like dominoes affect other experiences. Moments build on other moments and life happens.

This book is not a condemnation of people or events. Trying to analyze the whys of my termination is not the focus of this book. Each person who experiences job loss deals with a different scenario. Relating the details of mine, therefore, would serve no purpose.

What then is my purpose, my hope in this book? First, I want to befriend those who have been hurt by termination. When I was fired, I tried, without much luck, to find resources—books, people—that could relate to my questions, doubts, and fears. I just needed to know that someone else had experienced at least some of the things that I was battling. That commonality alone would have inspired me when I was so desperate for something. My hope is that if you have lost your job, you find that thread of sameness in this book, and that for a moment that bond lifts your spirits.

More importantly, I hope this book demonstrates God’s guidance in my life. In each chapter, I try to share honestly with you as I struggled with questions and with control. The process is not an easy one. Notice that I use the present tense. I am still searching for answers; I am still seeking His direction. Now, however, I am confident in the navigation system. In my case, GPS is an acronym for God’s Positioning System, and I am confident that His data is current, and He has a plan for me.

Ultimately, my hope in this book is that if you do not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you will open your heart to Him. The Gospel of Jesus Christ offers the freedom and joy and security and peace that move the barricades aside when the sign says Dead End.

1

Dead End

The truck driver squeals his semi to within inches of me. Shaking his fist, he seems to orchestrate the string of profanities he spits at me. He’s on a schedule, and the delay is unacceptable.

The sign says Stop. It’s a simple statement, a one-word directive, yet somehow it fuels a litany of random responses. Some wait patiently for change: the young mother with screaming children seems relieved − she stares out the window removed for a moment from the chaos in the back-seat; others, like the trucker, are outraged.

Suddenly, the static from the radio jerks me back to my new reality, and I benignly flip the sign: GO. And, for an instant, I wonder, as I often do nowadays, Go where? Do what? What am I doing here? How did I get here?

I’m 47, and I am the flagman. I hold the signs for others, and, yet, I don’t even know how to res-pond to those simple STOP and GO edicts. I have been a pastor for 23 years and before that, the son of a pastor. Church is what I know. Church is what I was groomed for, what I went to school for. I have a bachelor’s degree and a doctorate, and, yet, here I am, a flagman on a road construction crew.

Out here on the road, my thoughts often return to that eclipsing moment, the earth-stood-still moment when I was forced from my job. Forced termination − it’s an ugly phrase − euphemistic, but ugly; I almost prefer fired; it’s simple, to the point − grinding.