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This is a text-only version of an article first published on Tuesday, 10 December 2019. Information shown on this page may no longer be current.
Church on Sunday can feel worlds away from our day-to-day lives.
We asked Christians to tell us how their lives connect with their faith for our new Whatever You Do prayer calendar.
Estelle Fourie describes her work in IT.
I started my career as a dietician but over the last twenty plus years, have found myself working in the world of information technology.
In 2006 I went from a commercial sales role to working in a team that was tasked to implement a new system.
Once we completed the project I decided to stay in IT and retrain as I had no formal IT qualification at that stage.
I'm not technically minded and really struggled with this particular course.
In September 2007, I had to sit my final exams and before I went into the exam room, I asked God for peace and clarity.
I passed the exams and took up the role of business analyst.
However, life in IT has been hard and I've spent many sleepless nights worrying about not being able to resolve technical issues.
My strength clearly lay in business processes, project management and working with customers.
The good thing about my role was that I was problem-solving and worked on opportunities to make life easier and increase productivity and profitability. I worked for a major company based in Canada and my job involved extensive travelling.
It's during this time that I started training as a Licenced Lay Minister.
Unfortunately, the travelling meant that I had to delay my training for a year, but I got there in the end! After five years I left to join a small engineering company based in Luton, where I was challenged not only with work-related stress, but I had a very difficult and damaging time with one of my colleagues, to the extent that we ended up in HR on many occasions.
The stress of having to deal with bullying and lack of respect affected my confidence and self-esteem more than I could've imagined.
It was only down to prayer and support from my Christian friends and my husband that prevented me from either physically assaulting or verbally abusing her.
Using my inner voice was one of the key learning points from that experience.
I found that reading a Psalm in the morning before I left for work did the trick, but even then I could only manage an eight hour work day and rushed out in the afternoon on the clock! I dreaded going to work. I left the company and started a new job in London in January this year, moving to a very innovative IT company specialising in the design of mobile applications.
We work with customers such as Greggs, Burberry, Transport for London, Jaguar Rolls Royce, BP and British Gas.
My role is a Service Delivery Manager and although I'm still surrounded by technology, I'm not responsible for solving technical issues.
I spend time working with clients on transition plans, building teams, incident management and process improvements. Looking back at my 25-year career, I've covered diverse fields but there's a common thread and that is a desire to make things better and find solutions.
I believe God uses me in this service focused role to show that service is a virtue - Galatians 5:13 ". do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. "
Prayer Points
Pray that we strive to be more outward looking and focus less on our own desires and needs.
Pray for justice and equality.
Learn to celebrate diversity and differences without judging.
Pray that we do not become callous when faced with overwhelming humanitarian crisis.
See @1CorTen31 for daily prayer points on Twitter.