God is doing a work in my heart right now.  it's not something i'm prepared to talk about just yet, but it's really exciting.  it's something that the Lord talked to me about a while ago and since then, it's come up again and again and again.  it seems like everywhere i turn, even when i'm not looking for it at all, there it is. 

i've been reading lots of blogs and crying.  my heart is full and heavy. 

life is such an adventure...i'm so glad that i get to experience it to its full.

"I came so that you might have life and have it to the full!"  --Jesus

there are times in my life when i've been surprised by someone.  not as in "jump out and yell" surprised, more along the lines of "hmmm...i didn't expect that" kind of surprised.  sometimes it's a good thing and sometimes it just leaves me feeling disappointed. 

i've recently been surprised.  and disappointed.  the situation has been building over the last several weeks, but the outcome was not what i was expecting at all.  i suppose we can't ever really predict how someone is going to react or what they are going to say, but when it's someone we've known for a while, the natural tendency is to guess.  that's where the expectations come from.  and the surprise.

i've been disappointed by this person a lot lately.  disappointed and discouraged.  that was a surprise in itself because this isn't someone i expected to be disappointed in.  but we're all human and i'll be the first to admit that i don't always live up to the expectations other people have of me.  i don't live up the expectations i have of myself most of the time.  but there are some people who just live their lives in such a way that you come to expect certain things from them.  things like compassion, empathy, understanding.  i realize those are lofty characteristics to expect, but the precursor to these is usually as simple as a good listening ear and sincerity.  at the heart of the matter, that's what i was expecting.  those two things. 

i think that's why i've been disappointed in the last several weeks.  both of those things have been absent.  in fact, there have been a few occasions where i've actually felt offended.  it's one thing to hurt someone's feelings or be a little snappy and short, but it's another thing entirely to be offensive.  i'm not talking about crude, lewd, crass offensive.  it was just the insincerity and lack of concern for others that offended me. 

confrontation, as difficult and scary as it is, can usually bring some resolution to these issues of unmet expectations.  this is where i was most surprised.  confrontation didn't work.  no listening ear.  no sincerity.  certainly no compassion, empathy, or understanding.  the result caught me completely off guard.  i guessed the response would be some quiet reflection, questions of concern, maybe even an apology.  what i really expected was that this person would take some sort of responsibility.  wrong.  imagine the opposite.  that was the response.  plus a lot of non-stop rambling that didn't really make sense at all. 

and i walked away surprised.  and disappointed.  and like the situation isn't probably going to get any better.  what do you do when confrontation doesn't work?  everything i've read says it's supposed to bring the two parties closer together and strenghten the relationship because it breaks the ice for more open communication.  that's not what happened this time.  this time it actually did the opposite. 

i promised more posts.  here goes...

let me begin with the madness that has been my employment experience for the last several months.  i was working as an executive assistant for the last two years.  last january, my boss announced that she was retiring.  she had done a lot of good for the Center in the 18 years she was there, but it was also time for some freshness and change.  i also thought it may be a good time for me to exit because i had been feeling like it was time for a change of scenery.  by mid-june her replacement had been hired.  he was a guy in his late 30's and he entered the scene with a million new ideas.  the plan was that my boss would hang around to train him (hello, 18 years of experience = a lot to pass on!) for the next few months and hand over the reins when he seemed ready.  let's just say it was a rough transition.  the new guy had lots of ideas, like i said, but not all of them were good ideas.  on top of that, he didn't really take the hint (subtle or not) when my boss or members of the board told him to focus more on learning the basics of the job than testing out all his new ideas.  let's be honest, he didn't take the hint because he was oblivious to the fact that when the board president says, "hey, stop doing that" it actually means to stop doing it.  bottom line, he didn't listen at all.  to anyone. 

it wasn't long before the staff and my boss were completely exasperated with him.  he didn't complete any projects on time.  in fact, he didn't complete any projects.  he turned them in for review, but i saw them, and they certainly were not complete.  he lost about $9,000 in sponsorships and donations because he didn't understand that he needed to actually ask people if they were renewing their donations instead of just assuming they were "in for next year," as he liked to put it.  his performance came under review several times, but like i said, he was oblivious to the fact that anything he was doing was being criticized.  it was maddening! 

by the end of september my boss was finished.  she couldn't take anymore.  at that point i began actively looking for another job.  not only did he ask other employees to do the things that fell into my job description, when he did ask me for information it was usually information i had already given him, often in writing, that he paid no attention to the first, second, third, fourth, and sometimes fifth times.  you may think i'm exaggerating, but let me assure that i'm not.  and things just got worse. 

pretty soon there were no rules in the office.  as long as you showed up sometime before 9am, you were fine.  we could wear jeans on friday, which was great, except that one employee felt she could wear jeans on thursday if she was going to be out on friday, since technically it was "her friday" for that week.  don't worry though, there were no rules.  one employee was rude to volunteers on a regular basis and actually threw tickets at a patron because he didn't want to give her what she asked for.  it didn't matter that she was asking on behalf of a company in town who had just donated $50,000.  but there were not rules, so he could act however he wanted.  soon there were promises of raises.  were they in the budget--who cares!    contracts were renegotiated, tickets were being given away, things were falling through the cracks...i was completely losing my mind!

i was looking for a job.  any job.  i got to the point that i didn't care what the job was as long as it got me out of there.  and God came through.  always.  a position came open at Voice of the Martyrs.  i applied.  and waited.  and waited.  and waited.  and then i got an interview.  and spent a week fretting over what to do.  can you believe it?  i was fretting over what to do!  it was a very significant pay cut and potentially not something i would even enjoy.  i didn't know what to do.  it was miserable.  and then they offered me the job.  in fact, they called me at work--on my work phone--and offered me the job.  i took it.  the next day i turned in my resignation and two weeks notice.  relief.  what was so weird is that when i gave the new guy my letter of resignation, he didn't ask me any questions.  i don't think he really liked me and this is why:  i knew more about how to do his job than he did, and he knew it.  there was no hiding from me because i knew where all the files were, who the contact people were, how to handle situations, and he had no idea because he refused to be trained. 

so i did it.  i quit my job.  my second week of my final two weeks was Christmas vacation, so thankfully, i didn't have to be in the office.  on january 2, i began my new job as a PSP partner at VOM.  i have a cubicle and stacks of work.  i love it!  ok, i hate the cubicle, but i love the stacks of work (ok, most days i love it) because i went from sitting for 8 hours every day with nothing, literally nothing, to do.  it's so much better to be busy.  the PSP program is a pastor sponsorship program.  it's very similar to sponsoring a child, but instead people are sponsoring a pastor or evangelist in a restricted nation.  it's exciting to see pictures of families in northern Vietnam or Cuba and know they are serving the same God that i serve.  it's awesome to read testimonies of men and women who were worshipping idols and visiting witchdoctors, but when they learned of Jesus their lives drastically changed and within a year they were pastoring a church or travelling village to village.  they definitely put me in the comforts of america to shame. 

but the story doesn't stop there.  two weeks after i started my new job, the board asked the new guy at my old job to resign.  he said no.  who does that?  why would you want to stick around when you knew they didn't really think you were doing a good job?  that's the problem though, he had no idea he wasn't doing a good job.  all those times he was reprimanded or told to stop, he was oblivious.  i don't know what he was thinking, but he definitely wasn't thinking that anyone questioned his ability to run the business.  pretty soon, he got a lawyer to fight his case.  people began to rally around him.  his friend who writes for the newspaper began writing articles about the situation that were full of lies.  blatant lies.  i was there and i know the truth and the paper printed lies.  on the front page.  what's so bizarre, though, is that the new guy actually believed that it was the truth.  in his mind, he was completely blindsided.  in his mind, the only thing anyone could be upset about was that he brought in some new shows.  it never occurred to him that those were possibly the only good things he was involved in and that the issue was that he was really just horrible at the job.  the paper started printing that he was "lured" to town and that he was given a job that he didn't even apply for.  he wasn't lured to town and he could have turned down the job they offered him, which wasn't the job he applied for, but he took it.  no one forced him to take it, it was no secret that it wasn't the job he initially applied for, and he could have easily said "no thanks."  the paper also starting printing that he didn't receive a job description (lie--i typed it myself) and his performance had never come into question (lie--even i confronted him about it).  it turned into a personal battle against specific members of the board and all sorts of random people got involved.  it was very ugly.  but he finally left...whew.

then two of the employees who, for some reason, were big fans of his (i have a hunch they were promised raises) started to pout.  the tables had turned and they weren't running the place anymore.  one quit.  by email.  and sent his keys with the other one.  pansy.  then they asked me to come back.  oh dear...

i said no.  it's good to feel wanted, or needed actually, but i just couldn't do it.  there was too much stress.  it was affecting my marriage.  more than i realized.  by that point, i had been able to catch my breath.  i wasn't exhausted every night when i got home from work.  i didn't dread mondays.  or tuesdays.  or wednesdays.  or thursdays.  or fridays.  it wasn't a good thing for me to jump back into. 

i'm so glad i made that decision and stood firm.  it was hard to tell them no, but God has definitely blessed that choice.  i have purpose.  i have energy.  my relationship with the Lord has been renewed.  my marriage is on the mend.  and to top it all off, i have made some friends who i could hang out with everyday if they wouldn't get sick of me. 

that's the story of my job.  there are a lot things i spared you because let's be honest, it's a little over the top.  it's true, though.  all of it.  and more.  i cried almost every day during the whole ordeal.  i cussed out of anger for the first time in my entire life because of that guy.  that's how bad it was.  it was a black pit sucking my life away.  but the Lord lifted me up out of the pit and set me on rock.  <deep sigh> 

i'm back.