To Everyone Who Didn’t Leave — You Were Released: A Love Letter to the RIF’d, the Fired, and the Faithful Who Stayed Too Long
There’s a quiet grief that doesn’t trend on LinkedIn.
It doesn’t fit neatly into the boxes of “career transitions” or “new opportunities.”
It’s the grief of being released — not by choice, not by timing, but by a system that decided your story had gone on long enough.
This is for you.
The RIF’d. The “let go.” The “your position is being abolished.”
And yes, the Deferred Resignation Program participants — those of you who were told it was voluntary when everyone in the room knew it wasn’t.
You didn’t just lose a job.
You lost a rhythm.
A badge that buzzed you in and whispered, You still belong here.
A mission that once gave you meaning.
A team that was family, until it wasn’t.
And yet — somehow, against every internal tremor of doubt — you’re still standing.
The Hidden Ministry of the RIF’d
I’ve learned something sacred in the aftermath of endings: God never demotes. He redirects.
To be “RIF’d” is to be Repositioned In Faith.
It’s not a reduction in force — it’s a redirection in formation.
The system may have called it separation, but heaven called it setup.
Because here’s the truth:
You were never meant to die in that cubicle.
You were never meant to keep breathing recycled air labeled “mission” while your purpose suffocated.
You were never meant to confuse stability with stagnation.
When God calls you out of Egypt, He doesn’t always give you a two-week notice.
Sometimes He just splits the sea of your paycheck — and dares you to trust that dry ground will appear.
The Deferred Resignation Program: Deferred, Yes — But Not Denied
Let’s speak truthfully.
The DRP wasn’t designed for transparency. It was the government’s way of saying, We can’t fire you outright, but we can make you choose your own exit.
Many of us nodded our way through those “voluntary” conversations, knowing our choice was between peace and punishment.
But I want to tell you something the policy brief never said:
You didn’t “quit.”
You answered a divine extraction order.
The same God who sent ravens to feed Elijah and a whale to carry Jonah is more than capable of re-routing your career.
He saw the gaslighting, the favoritism, the performative wellness, the silence in rooms that should have protected you.
He let the curtain close not to shame you, but to shield you.
The DRP was the government’s acronym.
But Heaven’s version? Divinely Redirected Path.
The Wound and the Witness
There’s a special kind of ache in realizing you gave your best to a system that never really saw you.
The overtime. The unpaid hours. The emotional labor of code-switching and culture-carrying.
You weren’t lazy. You were loyal.
And your loyalty was weaponized.
But here’s the paradox of faith: God will always use the same environment that drained you to reveal the endurance He placed inside you.
You may feel bruised by bureaucracy, but you are not broken by it.
Your release was not the end of your assignment — it was the transfer order.
You’ve been moved from mission compliance to kingdom clarity.
Remember Who You Were Before the Badge
Before you learned to speak in acronyms and swallow your brilliance behind clearance levels, you had a voice.
Before your self-worth got tangled in performance reviews and pay bands, you had purpose.
Before someone told you your “tone” was the problem, your tone was prophetic.
This is the season to remember that version of you.
The one who dreamed before deadlines.
The one who believed before bureaucracy.
The one who still trusted that meaning could exist outside of metrics.
You are not your title.
You are not your last evaluation.
You are not the rumor whispered after your resignation email went out.
You are the seed God buried in a system — and the bloom He called out of it.
A Word for the Fired
To those who were let go abruptly — who got the HR call that split your spirit in two — this is not a mark of shame.
Sometimes God has to let rejection do what comfort refused to.
He knows you would have stayed loyal to dysfunction if He hadn’t allowed the door to shut so loudly.
There’s a peculiar grace in being released before you’re ready.
Because readiness is often the enemy of revelation.
You didn’t fail — you finished.
And heaven said, enough.
To the Ones Still There
If you’re reading this from your cubicle, still clocking in, still walking the tightrope between gratitude and grief — hear me clearly: Stay alert to the signs.
Not every promotion is an elevation.
Not every title is trust.
And not every team is your tribe.
But while you’re still there — honor your assignment.
Lead with integrity.
Protect your peace.
And when it’s time to go, go with your head high and your spirit light.
Because you can leave a place without leaving your purpose.
The Aftermath Is Also Holy
There will be days when you miss the routine.
When your mornings feel too quiet.
When you wonder if the system will ever admit what it took from you.
But healing, like clearance, is progressive.
You are not behind. You are becoming.
And if you’re brave enough to stop calling it an ending, you might just see what it really is — a beginning you didn’t know you needed.
Poetic Benediction: “For the Released”
May your rest be holy,
your silence unashamed.
May every tear become a seed,
and every scar, a sign that you survived.
May you grieve without guilt
and rebuild without rush.
May you learn that endings
are just heaven’s way of folding new beginnings.
May the God who allowed the closure
author your comeback in light.
May you wake to the whisper:
You are not what they left; you are what I’m lifting.
May every loss become language,
every ache become altar.
May the job that broke you
never outshine the joy that’s being built from you.
You are not a casualty.
You are a calling.
You are not the forgotten.
You are the found.
And may your next assignment
not just pay you —
may it pour into you.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.