On January 1st, 2012, I played in a disc golf tournament with my three children, won the closest to the pin (basket), and celebrated by going to Dairy Queen on the way home. When I got home, I received a call from one of the new members of Red Lion’s leadership team. After starting out 2012 in grand fashion, before this call was over I was fired from my teaching position of a decade. While some of my friends were canned prior to Christmas, my replacement wasn’t able to start until February 1st so I finished out the second semester. In the days that followed, I was critically ashamed and clueless of what to do next.
For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome. 12 Then you will call upon Me, and you will come and pray to Me, and I will hear and heed you, Nehemiah 29:11-12.
January 2012 was one of the most difficult months of my life. The position that I was born for and created to do was taken away from me in an instant. While family and friends were extremely supportive, one song kept me going. I had recently purchased FM Static’s Critically Ashamed album over Christmas Break so I was in the process of listening to all of their songs. I can’t point to a specific lyric of Six Candles, but the sound and tone served as a source of healing in 2012. There were other songs that I relied on through this tough stretch, but I am forever thankful for Six Candles on the role that it played in reinventing myself over the past decade.
by Jay Mankus
ExpressYourself4Him 