| I didn't realize I was carrying shame. The truth is, after years of working part-time as an adjunct professor of Psychology and freelancing, the money I was bringing in wasn't enough to help my family thrive. Many nights, I wondered what I could possibly do to make my resume better to score an interview. No matter how much I perfected my resume and added more references, and volunteer experiences, nothing seemed to encourage companies to call me. Yet, after almost a year of looking, I received an unexpected email that asked me to set up an interview time. My initial response was joy, only to be followed by dread. I felt myself needing to hide parts of me. For days before the interview, I questioned what I should leave out of my interview and what would be too risky out of fear of being judged or excluded. In my mind, no one would want to hire a mother of seven children. I imagined if a job would want to hire me with my brown skin color, southern accent, status as a military spouse, or time away from the full-time workforce. Even more so, one look at my resume revealed my Christian faith as my volunteer experiences were mostly church-based. I wasn't sure if this category of my life could cause me to face a bias from the interviewer. In a world that values secularism, I feared missing out on the job I had been waiting for and when it was time for the interview deflected almost every question about any experience related to my faith. It was with heavy guilt that I denied the same God who I prayed would help me get the job. I found myself ashamed of the Gospel. Although I got the job, returning to the workforce required me to slowly peel off pieces of the perfectly polished mask that I had portrayed in the interview. Day by day I would struggle with how to show up Christian in the marketplace. Thankfully, the Lord started to speak to me about my choice to act as if I didn't have a relationship with Him. He spoke so gently, "What if I placed you here to spread my Word?" What if your choice to not share the Gospel is life or death for your co-workers? Purposely hiding my faith was not only a bad idea but sinful. And although we would love to ignore Jesus' strong message, He made it clear that denying the Gospel was not acceptable. | 
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