It started as a teen in high school, when I thought I took a lot of classes from Mr. Jones thinking that being a secretary was the only way I could have something to fall back on that didn’t have a lot of math in the curriculum It seemed to be the easiest road I could travel down at the time. How wrong I was. If it isn’t your calling, don’t take the easy road … or what looks like the easy road. Now there are all kinds of life coaches online that will help you find your niche and tell you to follow your passion. If I had a passion, it would have been music, singing, dancing and acting, but in my mind, I was too shy and afraid to be noticed to try to even venture in that direction. I remember lieing in my bed at night weeping, wanting with all my heart to be something of significance and dance or sing and have a acting career. I never knew I had talent until the Senior play. I was so animated and loved being in front of the people and putting my whole self into the situation. I didn’t understand the gift I had till much later. I could memorize lines and poetry and numbers and anything that had a connection. Unfortunately, back then I had one passion, to belong somewhere, anywhere. I was hiding behind a facade of trying to be pretty at the same time thinking I was the ugly duckling of the century.
So, being afraid of my own shadow, I thought I might be overwhelmed going to college, trying to stretch myself beyond what I felt I might be able to accomplish, mathematically. I decided to go to a community college and get a 2 year degree in secretarial science. I also took history and music because I was interested in both and it allowed me a bit of enjoyment in my classes. Unfortunately, I found my secretarial classes quite boring. Thinking of going to a 4 year college to get a degree knowing I’d have to deal with algebra again was more than I could bear. I had already had erasers thrown at me and called a hammer-head and flunked the last half of Algebra in high school. I had enough. Eventually, by the way, I took a course in math when my self esteem was at a higher peak and it came as a real shock when I came out with a B+……I cried when she told me that. My teacher was kind and thoughtful. She told me, “I don’t know why you are so concerned about your grade, you have a better score than a lot of the students in this class. Shocked as I was, I had to see the grade. it was so hard to believe. She told me I probably only had a mental block. May be….since I was scared to speak in class when called upon, then called names, because my coach teacher was so frustrated and didn’t know how to help me. I was so afraid to speak, as I remember. I didn’t learn how to really talk till I had married my soul mate, Jack and had the courage to poke my head out of my head gear. He was shocked how much I had to say on our honeymoon. 🙂 Good soul he was.
So, regressing, courage seemed to escape me, I didn’t know what the word meant much less how to embrace it. Yet, I realized to live and do what I did after what I had gone through as a child and the emotional tags left upon my heart, looking back I had a lot of courage. However, in grade school, the last thing I wanted to do was draw attention to myself.
My first working experience started as a work-study student in our home town. It was a small hospital and had about 4 doctors in the clinic that saw patients during the day as well as took care of the patients in the small, 20 or so, bed hospital.
The job was assist to the front desk person. She was a pretty lady and quite organized, tall of stature and gifted with people and articulate. I never quite understand being treated like a 2nd rate citizen around her, but that’s how it worked. I would come in around 1 pm and the other class mate, who had been given the morning shift, had left by then. I never quite fit in and so was miserable. I never understood the treatment I received, not that it mattered too much, but it was enough to be noticed and I couldn’t put my finger on why I was singled out from the other girl as the one that made more mistakes, which I probably did, but why when a folder went missing, it was my fault and I was the one assigned to look for the folder days on end….when one day I finally stepped up and said to her, “I’ve looked in between every file in this whole filing system and have not come up with anything. I’m not sure what to do now.” “Oh,” was the reply, “We found that file last week under the printer in the back room.” Huh? I was stunned. I wept in silence and alone. Later I was called into the administrator’s office, who was a kind lady, and she suggested maybe there is another place we could put you that you might enjoy more. My heart ached to be accepted and this was just another situation that made me feel the opposite. Well, at least I wasn’t being fired. I was assigned to the insurance department with two older but very kind women who had worked in health insurance for a long time.
One of the women was very kind and forthcoming more so than the other lady, so one day I got up the nerve to ask about why “pray tell” was I not accepted in the other office. Surprised, she responded. “You don’t know?” I hadn’t a clue, I confessed to her. She said, “She was jealous of you.” I was flabbergasted! Why would an older lady who was pretty, be at all jealous of me? I had nothing on anyone as far as I could see. When we see ourselves as “less than” we skew our view of how life really is and keep ourselves back from living the life we are called to. This was the beginning of a long hard lesson about women in the work place and why it was so difficult to just “get along.”From that time forward, I worked in many offices over the years with many women, who some became my friends and others I found treated me like chopped liver. ….so to speak. I never understand reasoning or the whys of treating someone you hardly knew like they were your worst enemy. I guess you decided you don’t like a person for the clothes they wear or the way they put on their makeup or “don’t.” I never understood at the time. I accepted people as they were and didn’t have time to size them up or be jealous. I was many times jealous, but it didn’t matter as I couldn’t do anything about my situation nor make things different by being that way. It was just a low boiling rumble in my heart, wishing I could be different or make a difference, somehow. As time passed, I realized you cannot understand evil. Humanity has different situations that cause them to be jealous, insecure, hateful and cause them to receive evil actions in their own head to act toward another person. Satan is evil and insidious
When my X husband decided to leave and I found myself, not having supported myself in the working world for 25 years, petrified at the thought of going out and having to make it in a economic working world, I had long left behind. All my computer skills were decades old and I was not in the frame of mind to work along side those who had “made it” in the dog-eat-dog of those that had settled into their routine and had honed their skills when mine were ages old and not very good anyway.
After my first husband passed, widowed at 26 I decided I would not go to school, but be a home-schooling mom and spend time with my children, TIME! something I never received when I was a child. My mother was never home and was always late coming home after dark because she had to make sure my father did his part in supporting the family and making sure the bread ended up on the table. She was a pusher and a shaker, but I think always felt she got the short end of the stick….so to speak. She seemed to always have to drive my father to make sure bills were paid and food on the table. He wasn’t a bad guy, just undisciplined and unable to work hard for long periods of time. Little did we know, that years later he had suffered several heart attacks when younger and even passed away because his heart was in such bad shape later in life. The doctors confirmed that his heart had been damaged from an attack years earlier, but was never diagnosed. He seemed always out of energy and tired, and mom just thought he didn’t have a desire to work hard. So sad! Anyway, I was determined not to be away and working or going to school just to fulfill a worldly desire of my own when my children only had one parent and that parent had a choice to be with them or not. I chose the former. It paid off in the end, but caused a series of wrong choices along the way because of my own fears of facing some shortcomings I could see that I didn’t understand and those I was blind to, of course.
Fast forward to years later when my X-husband decides to leave the family taking the only liquid asset I have with him to leave for another country, and possibly invest in some kind of computer business. I had no desire to “invest’ in anything except the Lord’s work, finish the home we had been working on, caring for my children and what was in front of me. I was a bit, well, my focus was not on the possibilities of the future, but how I could make things work for my family at the time. So now, I’m divorced, my children are teens, I own a huge home that I have invested all my deceased husband’s assets into and it wasn’t enough to finish or make ends meet. I found a job working 8-5 for a steel manufacturing company. The job I was given in the beginning was pretty easy. I had to run document blanks through a machine to copy blueprints to send to contractors and erectors that were hired by the company to do erection. For some reason I was still scared tod death. It amazes me to understand now how scared I was out in the working world, then. So I didn’t think I was very good at the job. The lady that would help me during the day was all about making fun of me and because of my anxious, took advantage to poke some fun and enjoy saying condescending comments about me. I even had nightmares about losing documents at night and hated to go back to work, but go back I did. I was giving the job after i had “graduated” from the print or document girl job to entering numbers in a spread sheet. I was miserable doing such things. It seemed to take me forever to finish a spreadsheet. I hated it and could not make my brain move forward doing the small tasks required. I just thought I was missing a few bricks. In reality, on down the road, as I looked back I realized the fear and past trauma had caused me to be unable to focus on any one thing for very long.
The other woman who had always been a shrewd unkind person to me (I never knew what I was doing to deserve the treatment except maybe I was an easy target) asking me to keep her dog. I had a fenced in back yard and she needed some help, was offering me money. I didn’t want to keep her dog as I already felt like an “underdog” around her and trampled under her feet and decided for the first time in my life I wasn’t made to be a door mat.
I was so tormented from a young child even then after 2 husbands and all I had been through. It is amazing to me now, how I was tormented by the devil and the fears and unbelief that “so easily beset me.” I was so afraid of losing documents because I couldn’t keep my mind on what I was doing. Little did I understand or know that the trauma I had gone through played a huge part in my inability to keep my mind on what I was doing…..and affected my performance at work. It also, had a grievous effect on my family who, to this day still do not understand their mom. Eventually I was transferred out of the job that required me to concentrate on documents and stacking papers to a phone job, communicating with outsiders. I began to flourish. I really enjoyed the job. It was talking to others about something I knew little about but realized I could be kind, courteous, friendly and interested in the person I was talking to and it worked like a charm. They desired to work for us because I was interested in them as a person not just in their bid. I never understood this till later….but people respond in like, if you show them respect and accompany it with promise of payment and are faithful, doing what you say you will.
During this time, I had so much I was dealing with in regard to my X leaving and having to sell the home for pennies on the dollar. I finally sold the home and brought everything to a home I was renting that had a huge basement. I stored everything in the basement I had in the house, till I could figure out what to do with it. I had antiques and all kinds of cool stuff from 20 years of life. I had a huge yard sale eventually. A friend volunteered to help me organize and put things in some kind of order. It was a lot of fun and I was so grateful that she offered to help me. I was overwhelmed, to say the least, after losing my home and the investment I had hoped to make for an inheritance for my children. It was difficult for us all.
So, I worked for this company and was given this position that I really enjoyed and seemed to be good at. It was a phone job and I was to call the sub-contractors who would be doing the job and lining up bids. We would supply materials and they would supply the labor. I As I continued to work for the company, I was given a $5.00 an hour raise which is unheard of….but God continued to bless me.
I also loved the Lord and wanted to love this person and give to the Lord due His name. I didn’t know how to love the Lord and love this person and be kind and tenderhearted at the same time. It was hard because I was being mistreated and mocked mostly through all of this difficult time.
So it is getting close to the dead line where she needs me to decide to keep her dog or not keep her dog. I had prayed and prayed about what God wanted me to do in the situation, but still had no clue as to how to approach her or the situation. I was driving to work one morning and it was 2 days before her trip. I was telling the Lord on my way to work, “God I don’t have too many more hours before I have to tell her what I’m doing. Please share with me what you would want of me.” I heard deep in my soul. “KEEP THE DOG’ DON’T TAKE THE MONEY.” I laughed out loud as I was in my car by myself. What a wonderful spiritual and godly idea!. That had never occurred to me as I really needed the money and it was the only reason I would have done it in the first place….but God had other plans.
Long story short, I kept her dog but told her under no uncertain terms could a accept her money for keeping her dog. She wouldn’t hear of it. We left it at that, She came to pick up her dog after returning and stuffed $150 in my hand as she walked off. I said,”I told you I didn’t want the money.” She said, “Too bad, you worked for it and I am paying for services rendered.”
The money stayed on the top of my dresser just like it was handed to me for weeks. I was dumbfounded as to what to do with this “blood” money. It wasn’t mine, I knew that, but what was I to do? I found the only honest thing I could do before the Lord was to be real and return the money. One morning I wrote out a note as to why I could not take the money and tacked it to her back door before I went to work. She always arrived an hour earlier before anyone else so she could get her work done in silence. Two weeks went by and I never heard back from her. Then one day she saunters into my office with a bit of a smirk on her face and says, “I suppose you were wondering why I never said anything to you about the money?” “No, not really, I replied,” I gave that back to you and what you did with it was your decision.” I told you why I couldn’t keep it and it was not my business what happened afterward.” She then asked me if it would be OK with me if she gave it to the collection downstairs for the little boy who was going into surgery. They were collecting because the father worked as a welder in the manufacturing plant downstairs. I told her I thought that was a great idea.
From then on the woman was respectful and every evening before she left work, as she left at 4 in the afternoon and I left at 5, she would stop by my office and bid me a good evening, to chat a bit and see how I was.
The incident left and indefinable mark on her heart as it did mine, from what I could tell. God is good and He always changes both parties no matter what the issue is even if it seem insignificant. If someone decides to obey, I think the Lord moves heaven and earth to move on behalf on a servant whose heart is loyal to him. Something I learned also, everyone is looking for someone to look up to and find a reason to have hope where there can be meaning beyond the tangible. We both found a deeper sense of purpose even if we never really had that great relationship. It really changed us both.
After the other print girl left the office, I happened to be in my bosses’ office one day and mentioned the print girl, wondered if she was Okay. He confessed to me that she had come into his office and said to him. “No body can be that nice, and I’m going to prove it to you.” So, this woman chose to make my life “miserable” (and I let her) for her time there, just to prove that “no one could be that nice.” Yikes! Once I heard from the Lord and let Him have the whole situation is when it lifted, but not until I was willing to “let go.” In the middle of it however, is the lesson that you can’t please anyone, in reality, just please the Lord. Deep within, I found solace walking with my Lord in a difficult situation that most people would not have had a second thought about.
I’ve learned and we all have heard that our “greatest weakness is can become our greatest strength” Looking back, going through some of life’s trauma, I wasn’t able to cope with the negative almost neurotic feelings that I would be tormented with outside the working environment and actually as I was there. I was in a trance like feeling I suppose when I was there, then at home all hell would break lose in my mind about how inept I was and how I would never make it in the working world.
It’s interesting that “being nice” would come into play, because I wasn’t “nice” I was just afraid and didn’t have any words to say to her, because I felt I wouldn’t be able to speak what was really on my heart, and before I’d get it out, I’d be chewed up and spit out before I could figure out how to respond with only a few words. Fear had me bound. What I was really feeling was fear and anger, but what came out, since I kept going back to the Lord and giving Him these feelings, was kindness, patience from Holy Spirit. As it turned out, God gave me so many opportunities to reach out to others and be “kind” during the time I was working in that office.
At lunch I would take my bible and a folding chair, move it out on the roof as my office was in the back of the blueprint room when I first started, and take time to thank the Lord and read his word and worship and eat my lunch. I was so blessed and grew by leaps and bounds.
This same boss was still singing praises of my performance 10 years later when in reality, it was only the Lord and praying through my fears and shortcomings that I was able to perform and do above and beyond what was asked of me. His name was lifted, because of the realization that I had nothing to give, in and of myself, so in pursuing kindness and His righteousness outside myself, I found it changed the whole circumstances. Had I just been “Nice,” nothing would have made any difference.
Love changes things. Not human love, but God’s love. It was God’s love these ladies experienced…..and gratefully, so did I.