Friday Foto #52

How has this sign stayed so clean and pristine while the building it is attached to has aged so much? That is the question I pose related to this weeks Friday Foto. This is one side of an old gas station in West Texas. To me, it is a sign of the times. Of better, more prosperous times in the past when business was going well and customers needs were being met all day long.

At one time this gas station served a little town that had a decent amount going for it, before the oil industry dried up in the area, and caused this little town to start deteriorating in terms of industry and income for many families. Now it is just hanging on by a thread, with some return of oil, but nothing like the good ole days.

There are times when I feel like this building. Especially this week, in light of some major financial upheaval here in our household, that pertain to our revenue for 2010. Of course like this gas station, we don’t know from day to day, week to week, month to month, year to year what our income will be, and we cannot make clients hire us anymore than the owner of this gas station could sway people to pull in to buy his gas vs. someone else’s. We do know the One that makes it all happen though, and must rely on Him, in great faith, to continue to provide for us. He has never let us down.

Each year about this time, I start to wonder where and from whom the work that we will do for the coming year will come from. It changes every year, and with all the ups and downs of most clients, I still had one steady, reliable and good source of work to act as a great base for the rest of the year for us. As of January 2010, we will not have that anymore. So we act, trying to see what else is out there amongst our clients, and get some kind of idea for coming work in the next few months. But we also wait, for God to do His thing.

Hopefully we will not wind up like this old gas station, but will rebound from this and be fine—more than fine—by what God does amidst all this. Stay tuned for the details of what He does. It’s going to be an interesting year.