Holding Plans Loosely: What a Layoff Taught Kasey Jones About Identity and Trust

Kasey Jones is a planner by nature. She breaks big visions into bite-sized steps, builds the timeline, and works backward from the goal. Then one November, the plan collapsed.

Just six months into what she believed was a dream role at a marketing agency, Kasey was laid off. It was the week before Thanksgiving in 2024. The agency eventually closed its doors. What came next was not only a career question. It was a question about who Kasey believed she was.

Where the Foundation Was Laid

Kasey's story starts well before the layoff. She became a Christian during her freshman year of college and was connected to a campus ministry almost immediately. "I was really learning how to have a relationship with God," Kasey says. "That was super foundational for me."

After graduating, Kasey joined that same ministry's staff and moved to Indianapolis. For about five years, Kasey served on a resource hub team supporting staff across five Indiana campuses. That meant planning conferences, annual events, and staff trainings, and supporting donors along the way. Kasey was effectively a one-person communications team, teaching herself websites, graphic design, social media, email marketing, photography, and video.

It was a training ground in more than skills. Kasey also mentored college students and new graduates who were moving to Indy and learning to live independently for the first time. Over thirteen years and several nonprofit and corporate roles, one conviction has stayed constant.

Every person that I'm working with or interacting with through work is made in the image of God. Even if I don't agree with them on everything, or whether or not they're a believer, I'm called to love them and serve them.

The way that conviction shows up today is simple. "I want to see people win," Kasey says. "A lot of people have gifts and skills and talents that I don't have."

The Season That Shook Everything

Kasey is candid about how hard the layoff hit. The job market was punishing, and the loss landed on top of an identity that Kasey did not realize was so tightly tied to work.

"It's just natural to be defined, unfortunately, by your job," Kasey says. "It's one of the first things people ask when they meet somebody. So being in that place, outside of my control, really challenged my identity. Do I really believe that my identity is in Christ and not in my job? Because I don't have a job right now, and this is out of my control."

The honest answer was uncomfortable. The experience was deeply challenging, prompting Kasey to wrestle with her faith, her sense of identity, and some difficult questions about what it really means to trust God in uncertain circumstances. Many of us have been there. We often say our worth rests in Christ, but it's during life's unexpected challenges that we discover how much of our identity we've placed in other things.

"I had wrapped up my identity and my sense of self worth in my job way more than I thought."

Kasey also connects this to an earlier prayer. For years, Kasey had asked God to refine and make her more like Christ. "Do you really want him to do that?" Kasey says with a laugh. "Because this is what that means. The trials, the refining, the purifying. It is hard, and it hurts." And yet Kasey describes the experience as worshipful, a firsthand look at who God is.

A Pivot Built on Relationships

After several months of searching without finding a full-time role, Kasey made a move. Drawing on her professional network, Kasey set up contract retainers with a few organizations and slowly rebuilt a stable income. Today, Kasey works independently as a strategy, operations, and project management consultant, partnering with nonprofits, creative agencies, and organizational leaders to bridge the gap between big ideas and execution.

Kasey does not credit luck alone. "The stars kind of aligned," Kasey says, "but I believe God provided those opportunities." The network was not built as a safety net. It was built by serving people well, and when the season turned, those relationships carried Kasey through.

Lessons for Leaders Carrying Big Ideas

Kasey's work is helping visionaries who feel overwhelmed by what it takes to make an idea real. The advice is both hopeful and practical.

"Don't throw out your idea just because you're overwhelmed. Just because it's a big idea doesn't mean it's not possible."

Then comes the project manager's method: work backward. Ask what it would take for this to happen, then break it into pieces. What resources are needed? What capacity? Funding? More people on the team? "What are the pieces that can help us put the puzzle together?" Kasey asks. The big dream becomes manageable and realistic once it is a list of next steps.

Kasey also learned a lesson about leadership through grief. In early 2022, Kasey's mother's health declined quickly, and she passed away. At the time, Kasey was working under a manager and in an environment that offered little support. Kasey eventually left, and the experience left a lasting mark.

"There's a version of me before losing my mom and a version of me after," Kasey says. "I thought I had so much more time with her."

That experience, along with working under different types of leadership, shaped Kasey's belief that competence alone doesn't make someone a good leader. Character, integrity, humility, and emotional intelligence matter just as much, and it's something Kasey strives to model in her own work today.

"Everyone is a human, and everyone has things going on in their life that you might not know about," Kasey says. "You don't know what people are carrying day to day. To me that's non-negotiable. Leaders have to care for their people as whole people, not just workers and productivity."

Kasey also points to a mentor, a former colleague who now runs his own agency and works with Kasey on contract. His encouragement to dream boldly, and to ask whether God is in those dreams, planted seeds that Kasey says have shaped more than he knows.

The Lesson Kasey Wishes Had Come Sooner

Asked what Kasey wishes had been learned earlier, the answer is striking from someone who plans for a living. Early on, Kasey believed that checking every box and working hard would make things fall into place.

"I'm really not in control. God is going to do whatever he wants, even if I think I'm doing everything right. But that doesn't mean God hasn't been faithful. He's used everything. Nothing's been wasted."

Kasey now holds plans loosely, taking each day as it comes and trusting God with the results. Planning is still part of the job, but Kasey no longer clings to the illusion of control. As Kasey puts it, living in that tension is something we do every day.

To younger professionals, especially believers, Kasey offers this: if the worst happens and you are laid off, you are going to be okay. Changing course does not mean failing. "The timeline is made up," Kasey says. She is talking about the pressure we put on ourselves to meet certain milestones, or to measure our progress against everyone else's. Just because the path looks different does not mean we are behind, that we have failed, or that our worth is diminished. "Wherever God leads you, don't be insecure if you don't match up to somebody else's timeline." Kasey admits to still learning that one.

Looking back, Kasey can see how her years across nonprofits, corporate environments, and creative agencies, the skills she taught herself, and the unexpected detours prepared her for the consulting work she does today. What once felt like a non-linear career path has become one of her greatest professional strengths. God uses it all.

What You Can Do This Week

Kasey's story invites us to take a few honest steps:

Name where your identity is resting. Finish this sentence: "If I lost my job tomorrow, I would be..." Whatever you write next shows you what you may be leaning on.

Break one big idea into pieces. Pick the vision you have set aside and list the resources, capacity, and people it would take. Then choose a single next step.

Check in on someone. Remember that the people on your team are carrying things you cannot see. Ask how they are doing, and then listen.

Hold one plan loosely. Pray over it, work it faithfully, and release the outcome to God.

The job title may change, and the plan may too. Kasey's testimony is that the God who refines us is also the one who wastes nothing.