IT'S NOT ENOUGH

Verse for today is:

Proverbs 11:2King James Version (KJV)

"When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom."

The enemy stays trying to plant seeds of unfruitfulness to get you to fall off the path that the Lord has put you on. He also wants you to feel like what the Lord has given you is not enough and to get you puffed up. It's not necessary.

I started my week with three people speaking on a subject that I have not taken time to dwell on because if one did, you would feel negative too.  One program specialist I know is a Christian and Sabbath keeping Penecostal.  I haven’t had conversations with her about her beliefs over the past few months, but when I did it was nice to hear her take.  I was telling her that I was hanging in there and that there continues to be high turnover within my agency and one person who I enjoyed working with was quitting on Friday (yesterday) to become the director of another agency I have never worked with.  She then went into a conversation she had with another person she knew from a different agency and started talking about salaries and how accepting anything lower than $60,000 didn’t make any sense.  I make slightly more than half of that and was not ashamed to say what range I was in. 

I over heard a conversation about someone having a friend who went on to get their doctorate, but the person drug them through the mud because they opted to use loans to pursue this degree and didn’t take the time to save and take one class per year (who knows how many years) to get to where they are now.  Now I don’t know all that was involved.  I think she was also angry because this friend wanted to call her self chair-woman or director this or that and her friend thought she was acting better than everyone else because of the degree path she chose. 

I then started to think about myself with my masters and I took loans out to get this. 

I have heard enough bitter people looking at others at work and scolding them about the decisions they’ve made to get to the position we share now. 

I also had several encounters with my sister who is of the opinion that a masters makes you entitled to a $70,000 salary.  She makes such a big deal out of having the title “salaried” and she is an hourly worker and it’s ridiculous.  I am salaried, but I don’t make more than her (we are about the same), and every time I talk to her, she complains about being forced to do work she doesn’t want to do.  I say if you don’t want to do it or if it is not in your job title, talk to the manager about it, or quit.  She lacks social awareness and doesn’t speak up for herself when it is needed, but when she leaves the job, she has nothing but trash to say about the people and her job.  

I spoke to a specialist who was working with one of my clients and she asked me questions about the freedoms of my position after I shared with her my plans to get my car fixed next week.  If I have to go through all this to get my car fixed, my job must not pay enough. 

She asked me about my scheduling process knowing full well that the woman who used to sit behind me came and joined her company and probably told her everything in graphic detail what she needs to know about doing my job.  The woman behind me was one of the sharpest minds I knew out there and I think I heard people trash talking her after she left.  I can’t be mad at her, she was smarter than everyone else when it came to doing this job and doing it well.

The specialist who hired the woman who sat behind me created this new company because it was easier to work with more people (she has a huge client base and she wanted to simplify the insurance billing process).  Her career is what I imagined I would be doing when I was close to graduating with my masters, but I didn’t get the training.  She continued asking about my scheduling process and at one point appeared to put her nose up at me.  Of course someone who owns their own business is going to do what ever they want to do.  I work for an agency and have to follow their rules. 

All of these people in their own way are saying that what I am living, what I have, what I am trying to do, it’s not enough. 

It’s not enough, you shouldn’t be satisfied.  As I heard these things throughout the week, I started thinking it’s not enough.  Without a certain structure in place, I would not be able to go on, continue. 

But it’s Sabbath and a day for me to thank the Lord for what He has done for me and He continues to do abundantly. 

If it were not for the Lord putting certain structures in my life, I would not be living comfortably as I am.  It would be a shut case.  Where there is no way, God can make a way. 

I had a bad day with my son earlier in the week.  He was misbehaving and I disciplined him but it was not working.  He has been misbehaving more and I have been challenged in trying to deal with it.  It really started when he was watching youtube videos of other children misbehaving and now he is banned from watching youtube and other forms of uncontrolled programming. 

So I had a bad day and the next day I went to work and I never interact with people as I walk to work because for one, it’s too early for people to be out on the street walking, I’m wary of strangers, and no one is that friendly to even approach me unless they have a hidden agenda or there’s a problem they need me to know about.  I have walked and walked every week and the only one other time months ago a lady ran me down to tell me that my tire was low and needed air.  I noticed this lady before I left my car because she was driving a dodge charger and I like dodge chargers so I always look at them and give mental props to the driver who drove it. 

Well this day, I was walking and a lady had just parked her car and asked me if it was okay to park her car there all day.  She was within a 2 hour parking sign and I told her that she would have to move her car to three different streets close by which were free parking and had no limit.  I park up in the area all the time because anything further southbound is time sensitive and you are guaranteed a ticket.  She didn’t want to listen to me so she headed across the street to a parking lot person (attendant or customer) to ask if it was still okay to park there. 

I went on my way and was next to my office building when a man speaking broken English approached me.  He had his car double parked and asked  for directions to a street that I knew the name of, but couldn’t immediately point out.  It also didn’t help that he didn’t have a building number and it was just North blah street and blah street.  I did my best to give him directions using my google map app and hopefully he headed in the right direction. 

I still wonder at the significance of that.  I don’t know if that was God trying to make me feel like I am still worth something, that He knows I am still trying to do the right thing  and live Christianly after a day I thought I failed as a human being.  I don’t know if it was God trying to show that I don’t listen to him, that I lack direction and when He is trying to give it, I don’t listen.  I’m sure the second one has truth to it in my life.  I don’t pick up when He is trying to show me something, but I know there was something special about those two encounters.

Even now as I try to worship, I have distractions all around.  Downstairs neighbor is in her dirty moment and my son keeps acting up and doing things I’m telling him not to do.  I am going to worship anyway through this.  God has provided me with headphones to listen to songs of praise that I can sing to with my heart.  I may not be in a mansion in the middle of the woods far away from people with a multi million dollar music studio and sound system that plays music so wonderful that it can transport you to another place.  I have my wireless SoundBot headphones and can listen to In Christ Alone sung by Christina Grimmie.  I can block these distractions out.  I can sit in the cool of my living room and read His word.  I can watch the birds land on the balcony and the clouds roll off in the distance and they are very beautiful today.  I have enough to do this.  My son is throwing half of a plastic golden egg shell on me, but it is enough. 

My testimony is that God has given me what I need and what is enough for me at this stage in my life. 

That supervisor who quit on Friday, she asked me about my past boss from the previous agency.  That boss was the one who hired me, a nervous mess trying to answer questions during the interview.  I was sure she would say no, but she said yes to me that cold March day.  I gave an unsolicited written recommendation for her and the next day that supervisor now turned director said she was going to hire her.  I don’t give my recommendations so freely to people but she was a good managing director. On Thursday,  I looked at an email a specialist sent me and saw a name that was cc’d in and very familiar.  Two names actually this week on that email.  One name was the specialist who quit her other job that people said was due to stress of a car accident. I ran into her on Friday after running into my other client I was scheduled to see on Thursday. Friday was the day to run into everyone I knew apparently.

 She went on to this one agency to join their team and back with another client of mine.  The other name in the same email was the person who inspired and told me to apply for the job I have now.  My old client from my past employer wondered where she was and would keep calling my current agency looking for her.  When I got to my agency I am at now, I was looking for her too, but she wasn’t at either of the two locations we have.  Turns out she is a director over at this other place.  She sent me an email at 1am in the morning on Friday that she would participate by telephone conference for a team meeting scheduled 10 hours later and would meet me for another meeting  3 hours after that. An email that early doesn't say much for workplace-personal life balance.  I let her know who I was and she said she knew she knew my name and made the connection of our past client without me even saying his name.  It’s a small world.

Who knows, I might be a director one day, but at this time I don’t want to.  I lack the confidence and skills it would take to do what she is doing and what my prior supervisor is doing.  My prior supervisor had 9 years under her belt.  Her student loans (if she had any) would be forgiven by year 10, where I want to be.  The person I received the email from has the same degree as I do.  There are other directors who have their bachelors and are doing really good for themselves. 

I have what I need at this time.  I will try harder to rely on Jesus and not my own strength to be successful in everything I try.  My small apartment is enough.  It is clean, comfortable, and smells nice (all the glade, candles, carpet fresheners, and auto sprayers I use on a daily-weekly basis, not to mention potpourri, you would think this was a parfume shoppe.  I have never treated any space as nice as the one I’m in right now.  My job is enough.  My son is company enough as wild as he wants to be.  I love him and enjoy spending time with him.  My car is enough.  God blessed me with enough.  Now I am going to enjoy the Sabbath.  It is enough for me.