This may come as a shock to some of you, but I was a little bit of a teacher's pet growing up. I know! I know, pick your chin up off the floor. I was the kid who liked to clean the chalk boards for teachers, took class work home to grade (seriously...is this really allowed???), jumped up at literally every opportunity to help, lead other kids by example, and embraced teachers at the end of the year with tear filled eyes as we said goodbye. You could say I was a brown noser, but my intent was never to better myself or get a leg up on anyone - I just genuinely liked being helpful to my teachers.
My friends' parents always liked me. I can think of one instance when a mom didn't care much for me - and it drove me MAD. Same for teachers - junior year English teacher Mrs Gonzales - she just didn't like me. Made me a crazy person! My mom's friends usually loved me, and vice versa. And when I got to the age to start working, bosses have always liked me. Again - I've never sucked up to bosses in an effort to better my status with them or get some sort of special treatment. I just want to be the best I can I suppose, and I like to be helpful. So, it is safe to say that with the exception of one boyfriend's mom and one teacher, I've never faced much adversity in the arena of authority figures.
However, right now with work I am facing some serious adversity. My boss and I are on the same team, we are in the adversity together and trying to support each other. But we are both very worn down from it. This weekend I prayed a lot for more grace to show to the people we are dealing with. I guess praying for grace is like praying for patience: instead of being filled up with grace, I was slapped with the need for even more than I knew I'd need within the first 10 minutes of my day yesterday. It seems to be that way every day.
Some of my stories are comical, they're so absurd. I wish I could write about some! Maybe I'll share the best (or worst?) at the end of all of this. For now, though, I need to be focusing on things like perseverance, grace, patience...and taking a swig of humble juice as I face the reality that...damn it...I may just not be the favorite person here. I may not be the perfect person for what they think they need. Instead, I need to focus on doing what I can do as well as I can do it and let the rest shake out.
I'll need a lot of prayer and support though. And even though I can't write a lot about it now, I'm praying that my boss and I can see this through and create as good of an ending to this story as possible. 10 years from now, I want to look back on this season and see all that I learned and how much I grew.
Scratch that - 1 year from now. I want to be on the other side and be thankful for the adversity 1 year from now. Most of all, I want to be able to say that I was filled with grace. Just a little more grace.
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