Dear Alberto: I am thankful for meeting you and the other friends at Retemanager. In particular, I am thankful for the possibility of getting to know Carlo, and for the friendship that ensued. My job situation is unresolved; de facto, I am still technically on the payroll even though I am not working and I don’t receive any paycheck. The company has not made any decisions yet about the future of the employees who are “on hold” like I am. Unexpectedly, in October I had a couple of interviews and had the possibility to offer my services as a consultant. Carlo put me in touch with the head of a company that manufactures semi-finished products, who is interested in starting a project to expand what his company can offer. All in all, these are all positive signs of the existence of a benevolent Presence giving me a hypothesis I have to verify. At this juncture, this Presence makes me carry on and resist the temptation to give in to dejection and dark thoughts, and allows me to say, now, that my value does not depend on my job. I arrived at this conclusion through some events linked with the search for a new position, but mainly thanks to the attention of certain friends, including Carlo and you. The loss of my job, and the ensuing uncertainty, have been the way God chose to make me understand that if I trust Him I can be free. I have often asked Him to show Himself in the work I had to do, and He answered my desire. Many times, I have been asked, “Why did this happened to you?” This made me wonder whether I had been abandoned, but now I know that it is not so. The future will still be a new possibility to meet Him. I was struck by something that a priest of my parish said during a homily: “The Virgin Mary simply followed what God asked of her, that is, to enshrine Jesus and to stay by Him in front of the Cross.”

Giorgio, Italy