Ship In The Middle Of The Storm

This morning Pastor Jack spoke upon the passage where the disciples were caught in the middle of a storm, in a boat, while on the Sea of Galilee (Mark 4:35-40). I so needed this message after the week that I had. Not that my week surpasses any trying week that anyone has ever faced before. This has only been the most trying one that I have faced to this p0int in my life. And still, I know that years from now this time will seem trivial in comparison to what I will face in the future. To quote a famous comic--with great powers comes great responsibilities. The same is true--with great dreams comes great responsibilities. But also, before great dreams comes to pass, there is a great testing that must be faced to prove one is worthy to step into that dream.
That being said, here is the sea water that I choked on while my own boat perilously rocked back and forth in my storm.
Test One: this week I opened a new cafe for the company that I work for on the Microsoft campus. Not so bad, right? I so looked for this opportunity. But rather than being a prayer come true to prove myself ready to be a manager of such a location, I feel less than worthy to be just a Lead. I found myself in the worst possible situation with this opening--none of my employees have experience. They are all new employees, untrained. Monday turned out to be chaotic. The company was giving away free coffee at the espresso bar. My two cashiers/baristas have been with the company for only a week and had maybe a total of five hours of training in anything. To meet demand I had to do work that my wrist has for the last six weeks prevented me from doing because of an injury. Because I had to do this, I was immediately put into severe pain. When I finished getting the lines taken care of I get told from others (higher ups) that I am not doing my job--taking care of the rest of the cafe or properly training the new employees. Everyone else (all the new employees in the cafe) turned to me for everything. And to top it off, we are not to expect an official manager to the cafe for two months. The person who is filling the position in the mean time has to learn how to do the job, learn how to run the register, and is thrown into this whole mess after being out of the loop because they were on vacation.
Tuesday was a bit better except that one of the people temporarily in the unit, who has previously been a lead for fourteen years, once again thoroughly brow beat me about not doing my job. They don't seem to take into consideration just how dysfunctional the work place is right now, and when I say dysfunctional, I mean DYSFUNCTIONAL! I'm doing the best that I can with no help from anyone. In fact, anyone who is of any position of leadership in the company who has been sent over to help with the opening has been sending me off to take care of things, without having the information if they have been taken care of. In short I spent two hours procuring things that someone else had already taken care of, but told no one about. And in that time I could have been training people to prevent the brow beating that one thought I "deserved".
Wednesday got even more worse. Two people higher up went out of their way to belittle me and put me down, or so it really seemed to me. It's not fair for me to say that this was really their motives since I frankly don't know what their motives are. Rather, the future manager told me that they are here to help me and that I should learn as much as I can from them. That was hard to hear from this manager because the last thing I want to do is debase myself to these people that I feel like are attacking me. An interesting remark was made by this manager while we were having a private discussion. This manager told me that one thing they have learned from observing me the last few days is that I'm thick skinned. I wanted to laugh when I heard that, because it has been situations like this, throughout my life, that I have has to learn how to be thick skinned. For good or bad, it has been a necessity, for as long as I can remember, to have thick skin. For various reasons, I have had to rely on myself with very little protection from other people. And while I know that many people have admired this very quality in my, they fail to see the price that is paid for having thick skin. They do not know the cuts to my heart that are made by words of others--the thick skin hide the effects of such attacks all for the "greater good". They also do not see that after I've protected and fought for myself for so long that I truly need a protector. And the longer that I go without a protector, the thicker my skin has to grow. My skin has to grow thicker because with position comes image. The higher I go, the less I can show the feelings that come upon me. The more that I have to appear to be the pillar and be the strength that others lack. And while I can pull this off, there will always be at least one person who will see the cracks in that pillar of strength that I have to be. But I will leave off on this, because at this point in time I am unable to share with the world what those cracks are and what my thick skin is protecting.
Thursday was a great relief at first because it was a half day for me since I had a doctor's appointment. it was a relief because in essence I got to run away from all the personal attacks. But it was only a temporary relief since everything was waiting for me on Friday. The one higher up that I was having trouble with brought everything back up again and refused to take my hints that I did not want to talk about it with them because the issues were being taken up with other people. Rather, it was like they were trying to make a point of my short comings. The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of another new employee and this person went to take up their issued with me to the future manager. Honestly, it's like salt on a fresh cut to watch this conversation take place in the open and having them move around to dodge me since they were on my floor and I was trying to do my job.
All of this might have been well and good--I could have somehow gotten over it and dealt with it. As taxing as all of this is, it was exponentially increased by the fact that I have been in horrible pain all week long. Over six weeks ago I injured my wrist on the job. It was only last week that I was transferred out to see a specialist, because I just was not healing. The news that I got from the specialist was that it was his opinion that one of two things happened. One, I tore my cartilage in my wrist. Or two, I tore some tendon(s) in between the small bones of my wrist. Before he could determine which it was, I needed to have an MRI taken. That was the appointment I left work early for back on Thursday. And Thursday was fine until the appointment. When the doctor went to inject the dye into my wrist for the MRI, there was complications. He couldn't get the needle between the bones in my wrist. As a consequence, the needle stabbed my bones several times. Between that and all the pressure in my wrist from the dye, I was in extreme pain until I woke up on Saturday morning.
What is interesting is the moments when you can dissociate a painful body part in order to be clear headed and functional at work--until the pain breaks through the dissociation. Sometimes I think it's weird to do that. But at other times I really don't know how I would have made it past the last several weeks without dissociating from the pain. My hell this last week was not having the ability to dissociate from the pain in order to deal with all the drama that I had to face at work. I couldn't be clear headed. I couldn't be normal. I had to constantly fight the urge to find a hidden corner to escape from all the trials caused by the culmination of physical pain and crap that no person should ever have to deal with in the work place (and in the mean time pretend that nothing is wrong on the surface just to get employees to do their job and give customers the service that they want). It is an impossible situation. And yet it happened. And you have to deal with it because it all happened.
If I didn't take all of Saturday off (not attending a meeting, not running much needed errands, not doing things that are pressing things to do, etc.) I really, honestly, think that I would have completely lost my sanity. And that was only a temporary fix, because I know today that if something hadn't happened at church today, Monday would have come around where Friday left off. And yet, I cannot put into words what changed today. But here are some of my notes from the service that really moved me (and my thick skin:)

God does strange things. Sometimes He leads you to what is a dead end. he leads you to no possibilities/impossibilities so that you turn to Him and His possibilities.
When you are in a trial you need to be led by the Spirit, because the Spirit will lead you to a place where you can thrive and grow roots that are deep. You can't have fruit without roots.
Keep your eyes on where you are going not where you are at. Keep your eyes on the blessing not the trial.
Embrace the trial because the trial is your testimony.
Awake the victory in you. The disciples woke Jesus. Jesus is in you.
If Jesus has rescued you before, He will do it again. Remember those times!
REFUSE TO BACK DOWN OR BE MADE INTO WHAT YOU ARE NOT!

God does do strange things. Did God cause me to go through all this trouble this last week? No. We live in a fallen world where "stuff" happens. But the great thing about God is that He takes the "stuff" and brings something beautiful out of it. (This next bit is kind of gross, but it's an image that has gotten me to think today.) Take poop--there is disease associate with handling it without proper procedures and protection, and it's just nasty to play with to begin with. But if you knew there was a turd that had a diamond worth millions just sitting in the middle of it, wouldn't you squash that turd to get that diamond? Being in filth doesn't change the value of that diamond. It's just a terrible circumstance to be found in to obtain that diamond. So it's the same with this last week. I can stand there staring at that painful turd and cry and throw a pity party. Or I can refuse to let that turd rule my life and turn me into what I am not. I have never given up on anything in my entire life, not even calculus in college (although I did wise up and recognize that I am not a rocket scientist! ;). So, what can I learn from all this??? I really don't know. But Monday morning I can go into work knowing that the circumstances there do not rule me. (In fact I can probably giggle to myself as I look at my "favorite" people and imagine them as turds.) But at least I can face another day knowing that God is still God, yes He does have a sense of humor, and that He will still show me the value behind what I have had to go through. This too can be used for my greater good. And I can still look forward to this upcoming Thursday when I go to see the doctor and learn how he's going to fix my wrist so that I can get rid of this pain.