Wyoming and Menaul

Writing assignment from Christian Writers Workshop.

Assignment: Write about a time God intersected in your life.

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I remember the exact moment the entire trajectory of my life changed.

I was driving, approaching the stoplight at Wyoming and Menaul in Albuquerque. I had traveled through this intersection thousands of times in my life as my childhood home was only a few blocks away. It’s an ordinary intersection between two ordinary roads and an ordinary neighborhood. There was a strip mall with a Dairy Queen on one corner. Across the street was a brake place I had never been too and across the street from that was an oil change place I had been to often. Nothing special or out of the ordinary, but I had been through it so many times it felt like a well worn glove.

That day, in that intersection, the course of my life would change forever. And not in the way you might imagine.

I had been working as an HR Assistant at a small engineering firm. I was unhappy with the job and the salary and had been looking for something new. A friend of mine had recently told me about an opening for a HR Generalist position at the large call center she worked at and was able to get me an interview.

I hadn’t heard anything for a few days and was beginning to feel deflated. My phone rang right as I was pulling up to the red light at the intersection of Wyoming and Menaul.

It was the HR manager for the call center calling to offer me the job. She excitedly told me that they thought I would be a great fit and proceeded to tell me what the starting pay was. It was almost $20k more than I was currently making! My head started swirling as I blinked at the taillights of the car in front of me.

She said, “This is what we’d like to start you off at but you’ll of course be eligible for increases based on performance.” Her tone implied I might think that the salary was too low which almost made me laugh out loud. But I managed to get control of myself as the cars in front of me started responding to the now green light.

“I think I can make that work”, I said confidently into the phone.

This is what grown ups say when they are having grown up conversations about grown up jobs right?

We talked through a few more details and as soon as we hung up, I’m pretty sure I let out an audible squeal in the car all by myself.

I’m not even sure where I was headed that day. Like I said, I had driven through that intersection thousands upon thousands of times in my life.

But that day, in that intersection, God took my life and turned it around almost 180 degrees.

It was that call that started my career at the T-Mobile call center. After a year and a half, an opportunity came up for a promotion and move to the T-Mobile headquarters located in Bellevue, WA right outside of Seattle.

I moved to Washington after living in Albuquerque for the entirety of my life. I reconnected with a family friend who lived in the area who also invited me to her church. I chose an apartment in a neighborhood God would use to powerfully draw me back to him after living many, many years running from him. I signed up for Christian Mingle and not long after received a message from my now husband. I got married to an Army man and became a step-mom. We ended up moving to California where I started my own business.

I didn’t know the path that my life would take the day that I got that phone call. While I’m sure many choices we make unnoticeably change the course of our lives, I can trace so much that happened in my life back to that day, in that intersection.

Sometimes I think God is subtle about how he intersects our lives and other times he is bold. He knew the plans he had for me and he wanted me to notice. What better a place to do that than that well worn intersection I hardly noticed any more.

The intersection of Wyoming and Menaul.

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