All that confidence had been shattered by the time …[Lynette Sparks] spoke on Romans two months ago, as an impending graduate of Colgate Rochester Crozer. The Friday before that Sunday, the Dow had lost 122 points, sinking to 7,278. Unemployment was on its way to 8.5 percent for the month, and home foreclosures were rising by one-fifth from an already abysmal February.<\/p>\n
So Ms. Sparks was engaging in both homiletics and autobiography when she called transition a \u201cwilderness place, a place of wandering, a place of suspended animation, a place that appears dry and lifeless.\u201d\u009d Her husband, Brad, who works in the auto-parts industry, had barely escaped three rounds of layoffs. And the ministry, her chosen profession, was suffering from a recession of its own at the very time she was going into the job market.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuddenly, for me, it\u2019s economic, and it had never been economic before,\u201d\u009d Ms. Sparks, 47, said in an interview. \u201cOur plan had always been that I wouldn\u2019t look for anything full time till our kids got out of high school in about five years. Now, with survival at stake, my assumption is that I can\u2019t afford to take a part-time call. And my husband and I are asking how wide a net we need to cast.<\/p>\n