I quit my dream job a few weeks ago. To be honest, I really struggled with letting it go even though I knew it was the right thing to do.
I’ve wanted to be a stunt actress ever since I learned it was a thing about 7 years ago. Ever since then, I fit as many stunt workshops, gymnastics, circus, aerial acrobatics, and martial arts classes I could into my 40+ hour teaching week. I practically lived in a gym. While I was living in New York City I networked with the people I met on sets (as much as my introverted self would allow), and was even cast for my ability to do Tai Chi on a popular Marvel/Netflix show as background (small, but things can add up).
Towards end of my year teaching in NYC, I had decided I had enough of teaching and that I was going to pursue stunts and acting full-time. However, as God would have it, He had other plans for my life besides acting. The last week of school, in a whirlwind series of events, I was packing up to head back to China where I would work another two years teaching. Initially, I didn’t want to go back to China, but when God says “go”, I go!
I moved back home this summer. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to do for the six months between the end of school and the World Race launch as far as an income producing job was concerned. During my job searching an email hit my inbox that the (very large and famous) local theme park was holding actor auditions for their Halloween production. I largely ignored it because I had already done something similar when I was in college, and because I don’t celebrate Halloween. Not soon after, the same park blasted an email about stunt auditions for the same production. Now that caught my attention. However, let me tell you… I agonized about the whole thing for weeks after I submitted my resume to be invited to the stunt auditions. I ended up reasoning with myself that if I wasn’t cast as stunts, I wasn’t doing it at all.
The audition day came and went well enough I actually felt I had a respectable shot at getting the role. A couple of weeks later I got a call that while I wasn’t “hard-cast” as a stunt performer, the park wanted to cast me as a character and when they needed someone to fill in for stunts, it would be me. This straddled the line of being cast and not. I was an understudy essentially, but it was the closest I had even been to being able to perform stunts and get consistently paid for it. I debated and reasoned with myself, and with God, and ridiculously swallowed the anxiety (for lack of a better word) that I had regarding taking this job.
I rolled my list of reasons for taking and not taking the job through my head over and over again.
I don’t even celebrate Halloween and I don’t like scary things, but I might get a chance to stunt.
Is this glorifying to God? But I can be a light to the people there. But how can I be a light to people when I’m dressed up as darkness?
My decision whether or not to quit ended up getting interrupted due to a family emergency (honestly I was just being a scaredy-cat to just rip off the band-aid). I ended up having to miss rehearsals and the first day fo the production, however I had still not turned down the job. The day before I was flying back home from being on the west coast, I got a job from the stage manager asking if I was available to step in for a stunt performer who had called out that night. Before the call, I was so ready to turn down the job and quit. But that one phone call was like dangling a worm in front of a fish, and Lord knows how much I wanted to bite.
Long story short, I ended up going ahead and worked a few nights before they called me in for stunts again. And I stayed with the hope of being called in again and again. I worked for about two weeks before the most unrealistic thing happened: the casting crew wanted to hard cast me in the stunt show for the rest of the season.
What?!
Isn’t this what I wanted in the first place??
But that knowing still lingered in the back of my mind, in my spirit. It had been as if I was covering my ears going la la la la… I had hardened my heart against the though that maybe being a performer wasn’t for me in this season. But I knew, I knew, I was making things harder on myself by dragging this out. And this was the final straw. I got what I wanted but was I going to take it?
I needed to concentrate on my relationship with the Lord, and this was taking away from my time with Him. I didn’t want any idols before Him, and this was certainly an idol, because I loved God more than this, right? I needed to work on fundraising for the World Race but this was taking away from it. I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t where I was supposed to be. In total, I worked for the park about two weeks in total before I turned the role down and quit.
So after counseling from two of my precious friends E and A, I repented and prayed. I repented for putting my “dream job” ahead of God’s plans. I prayed for strength to walk away from something I felt I worked so hard for, and for the peace to be okay with it. I knew God was asking me to put stunts away and I knew that the Lord’s plans for my life are far better than anything I could come up with, and that there was a reason He was putting it on my heart to walk away. There’s always a reason.
Usually I am so ready to jump when He asks me to jump. The previous times were easy compared to this. I know in the grand scheme of things, this one little gig makes up for nothing. But, you know how people say if its for you, it will happen; if its not, it won’t? Well, sometimes things work out in your favor even when it is not for you, and that in the end you will have to make the decision to walk away.
I thank the Lord that He is so kind and gracious. He knew I was going to take a while before I looked back to Him about this. He knew I was going to play tug-of-war and try to reason. He never forced my hand to decide, but instead patiently waited to stop being distracted and gently called me back to Him and His plans. I am so grateful and relieved He already knows how I can be as crazy as a barrel of monkeys and has already factored in my ridiculousness. Knowing Him and these things has given me peace, relief, and strength to deny myself for Him, and I’ll certainly be using this experience as a reminder the next time I might need encouragement.
God bless,
Julita xoxo
