Life After Surgery

So 23 April I had my surgery for my wrist, which I hurt back in February (16). Today I finally sat down to start blogging again. This last Thursday my cast came off, along with my stitches being removed and the two pins pulled out. Despite not having any mobility in my right hand right now, it just feels good to have all five of my fingers out in the open.
Life has most certainly not been easy these last two months. The day before my surgery, the company I work for literally threw me under the bus--they wrote me up and threatened to fire me if I didn't change. Instead of supporting me and the decisions that I had to make, the district manager and manager decided to listen to employees under me who had a personal vendetta against me (yep you probably guessed it, my favorite male employee who caused all those problems, and he pulled in all his friends to help him out). I was going to blog about this that night, but I'm glad that I didn't. I was sooo furious!!! What I would have written would only have looked bad for me. I was literally blind with rage. It was nothing pretty. In fact, my rage was as unchristian like as I have been in a very long time. And I tell you that for me to be able to say I have forgiven all these people, it is probably the hardest thing I have every had to do, ever. I was wronged like no other. I spent four months in non-stop extreme pain, still giving my best and not receive any bad feed back from customers about the service that I gave them. All this while opening a new high profile cafeteria with a staff that was 90% new hires with no experience. To forgive.... I honestly didn't want to forgive them. But I had no other choice--not because of them, but because of who I was becoming. There is nothing that I can do about them, I can't force them to do anything. All that is in my control is how I react and allow my life to be influenced my them. Even though I defended myself, my anger was literally eating me alive. I had to forgive to free myself from my own wrath. I had to forgive to bring peace back into my life. And I learned, through it all, that is the real purpose for forgiveness. Any church attending person can tell you that we are to forgive because God tells us to (or the super cheesy "because Christ first loved us"). Let's face it, the world will only answer "so what" to those reasons. It means nothing. The reason why it's important to forgive is because when we don't, the power behind unforgiveness overtakes us and makes us miserable--restlessness, sleeplessness, ultimately the failing of our health because of stress. I purposely phrased it the power of unforgiveness because when we are angry at someone we feel power. Let's admit it, we like the feeling of having power over someone else. I admit it. It's a pure power that is intense and grows the longer that we hold on to it and feed it. But it is a power that only leads to the destruction of someone--ultimately ourselves.
I wish I could say that forgiveness was the only thing that I had to fight over for nearly two months now. But it wasn't. I wanted the power because of the vulnerable weakness that I had inside--what I was trying to protect. My strong hand was gone. Although there's a lot that I can do left handed, it's not my strong hand. I'm not one to ask for help, because my childhood and teen years (oh let's face it, my whole life) has been spent in self reliance. Now I needed more help than I have asked for in a very long time. Not only that, but that helplessness was magnified greatly with what happened at work. I've always been a hard worker, 110%, and to have people tell me I'm not even giving 50% (which is a generous correlation of what I was being told)... imagine that. I was beat up inside and out.
I haven't been the same person. It takes a long time to build up self assurance, once it's been ripped to shreds. I know it's hard for people to understand me when I say this, because there have been quite a few people in my life who more than likely would describe me as the poster child of self confidence. I have been anything but. This has been the weakest point in my life. Truth be told, I don't know how to build it back up, or more to the point how long. I have a feeling that this trial in my life has taught me a meekness and gentleness that I've never had before. Now, I struggle to find myself as now I'm back to teaching my kindergarten Sunday school class. I'm not the same teacher, and I don't know why. This is where I feel the most loss of confidence and I don't know why. I don't know. Maybe I came back too soon. And that could be it. But I could only put it off for so long when I kept getting calls on when I would be returning and being told stories about my class. The best thing I heard about my kids was that all the substitute teachers (including the Children's Pastor's Wife) all remarked on how well behaved my kids are--I already knew that they were better behaved than the older children, and now others know it not! I got complements about how I was forming them, but I don't see it that way. I get the privilege of being a part of a year in their lives. It's not what I pour into them. God gives me great kids to teach. But above all, these kids are the kids that God gives me to fill the hole in my heart. I have no children of my own, but for 2-4 hours each week I have anywhere up to 30 children to pour my love into. For those few hours they are my children, my kids, my little ones.