30 August 2009

My Own Personal Miracle



I have had the awesome experience of seeing God work a miracle in my life right in front of me. I got to see His fingerprints in my life just as it was occurring.

After my company announced reorganization in February of this year, I knew from then on that my head was on the chopping block. Then, On May 5th, I received the fatal news that I was to be laid off. The company was gracious to give me 60 days to try to find another job in the company if I qualified.

My manager did an extraordinary job of trying to find another account I could work with that utilized my skill set, but my only prayer at that point was to follow after God’s will. If His will involved me staying at the same company, then I asked him to open the necessary doors. However, time and again, every time my manager thought he had something in the works for me, all those doors closed.

I was literally frozen in place, as it had been 16 years since I had to actually look for another job. I felt woefully unprepared in how to set out on this journey, so I placed all my trust in God, as I knew in my heart that He would ultimately provide for me in His time.

Well, the 60-day grace period was fast coming to an end. I had a personal friend (not a co-worker) that had worked for this company for 30 years and I let her know what my situation was. Within one week, she contacted me and told me that her department had just authorized two new positions. She felt as if I had the proper skill set and encouraged me to post for it. When I read the description online, while I did meet the necessary qualifications, it was in an area far from my expertise, but what did I have to lose. With only one week left on the payroll, I took the chance and posted for the job. In two days, that hiring manager called to indicate that he wanted to interview me as he just completed reading my résumé. He also told me that time was of the essence as he was leaving to go out of town the next day and wouldn’t be coming back until after I was off of the payroll.

As these 60 days drew to a close, I told God that if it was His will to have me leave this company (and therefore becoming unemployed and knowing that I would lose my house and everything), I was willing to be obedient to Him as I knew I was not walking down this road alone. The idea of losing everything that I had was a scary thought, but the lesson God was trying to teach me with this experience was learning what it meant to truly trust and rely on Him for everything. I looked at the supreme example taught me in the Bible where God sacrificed everything by losing His Son so that we would gain eternal salvation. Look how that situation turned out. Jesus, in losing everything, gained even more in return. Jesus gave up His life for me so that I could receive that ultimate gift of forgiveness. How could I do anything less?

With three days left to go, the hiring manager extended that job offer to me and I was able to seamlessly move from one position to the next with no loss of pay. They say that God’s timing is always perfect, but, in my eyes, He was really cutting it close! I know in my heart that God orchestrated everything and again proved just how much He loved me by standing on His promise to be by my side always.

Most of my co-workers debunked my beliefs throughout this ordeal, but my faith steadfastly stood ground. I finally knew what it meant to trust in God and that was never more evident to me by the events that ensued from the day I was laid off., and by the gift of Him giving me a peace that passed all understanding, even if it meant that I would become homeless.

He honored my prayer in requesting only that I abide by His will: to stay with that company, or to lose this job and start from scratch. This particular door was suddenly opened for me and the end result was receiving a new job with exactly the same salary and working conditions, although it meant that I had a horde of new responsibilities and areas for which had to be trained.

Well, I have been in this new job for two months now. This new job is quite overwhelming to me as there is a host of responsibilities that I have to learn. While the learning curve is quite high and that the bar has been set for some pretty spectacular expectations; however, the bottom line is that I still trust God. He blessed me with this opportunity and I have to believe that He will equip me to perform this job in order to give me an incredible testimony of God’s power in my life.

It is now my hope that God will use me to comfort those who are currently walking in my shoes. While I have never been quite so comfortable preaching to someone about how God can change lives, I can, however, speak from my heart and tell of a wonderful experience I received directly from God. People can argue all day long about religious dogma and theological positions, but no one can take away my first-hand experience of revealing how God touched me in a very real and personal way.

Are you facing a job loss? Do you feel that the entire world is against you? Are you in absolute fear of losing everything? Trust me when I tell you that this doesn’t have to be the case. Whether you believe in God or not, I know in my heart for a fact that He performed my own personal miracle. My views on God’s presence in my life was forever altered by this journey–one I am hoping God will use to allow me to share my story.©2009

23 August 2009

Birthday Cards


      Yesterday was a rather unexpected day of upheaval. I’ve mentioned before that remembering birthdays is important to me. There are a number of people from whom I expect to receive birthday cards. You’d think that part of the default list would be family members. In addition, there are certain other folks from whom I would expect to receive them. I also believe it is important to acknowledge others’ birthdays: of course family members, but included here, too, are friends. I know what it means when someone takes the time to pick out a special card and write something especially for me. I also know to what lengths I go to choose others’ birthday cards. I always take the time to write something personal for each card I send.

      Have birthday cards gone the way of snail mail opposed to email? No, I don’t think receiving an email for my birthday is the same thing. Email is too casual—too easy. In my opinion, acknowledging someone’s birthday should take some effort. These are milestones in people’s lives. You want to show them that they mean something to you—that their relationship with you is special.

      At one point in my past, I made it a point to always send out birthday cards to everyone that I knew that had a birthday coming up, even to include people that I didn’t know extremely well, like a new neighbor for example. I know what joy I receive when I open up a birthday card someone has sent me. I want to be able to give someone that same joy.

      It doesn’t take much effort. You can buy birthday cards from just about everywhere: grocery stores, the corner drug store, etc. It’s not as if you have to make an extra trip. You know you grocery shop every one to two weeks. Most folks I know hit up their local CVS on a regular basis. I always mark on my calendar everyone’s birthday that I know. Then, usually a week or so beforehand, I put it on my grocery list and voilà, the deed is done. It only takes about five minutes out of your day to inscribe something nice, slap a stamp on it and pop it into the mail. For me, I have to stop by the Post Office throughout the week as that is where I get my mail. For others, simply placing the card in your own mailbox with the red arm raised before your typical pick-up time takes care of having to make the trip to the Post Office. And stamps? I always have stamps around. First of all, I use them to pay my bills. Oh, sure, there are a lot of regular bills I pay online, but there are some that I can’t. I just can’t fathom the concept of someone not having a book of stamps around the house on any given day.

      So, why am I making a big deal about this? Because it is one of the few expectations I have that is important to me…very important. I don’t care if today’s culture places no emphasis on birthday cards. I don’t care if this is now considered a lost art with today’s technical advances in communication. So you might ask right now…what has fueled this diatribe? Why now?

      Well, I’ve been doing a slow burn on this subject for the last couple of years, but something happened to me yesterday (with which I will go into greater detail in just a minute) that brought this whole subject back to the forefront with me.

      Up to a few years ago I sent everyone in my family birthday cards: my son, my mother, my older and younger sister, my brother and his wife, my niece and her children, and my nephew (and his first wife). Now I’m going to sound like a spoiled child here, but this really hurt my feelings. What did I receive in return? Not a whole lot. My niece never acknowledged her birthday cards, much less the fact that I sent them to each of her children. Now, mind you, we weren’t close—geography primarily separated us initially, but she was still family. My brother and his wife almost never acknowledged their cards (oh, every so often I would get a brief email of thanks, so that’s better than most). And I never heard from my nephew. Yes, it is nice to receive that quick phone call of thanks for remembering a birthday, but not wholly expected. What do I expect? That those to whom I send birthday cards would also include me on their list of people they choose to remember and acknowledge with a birthday card to me.

      This year I received one birthday card—from my mother. In fact. That’s what happened a year ago. I actually can’t remember the last time my son sent me a birthday card (and while I’m at it, he hasn’t sent me a Mother’s Day card in years). I decided to be honest with my son this year. After a sufficient time had passed and I knew I could broach this subject without hurt feelings or anger getting in the way, I told my son that my feelings were hurt because he didn’t think enough of me to remember me on my birthdays or Mother’s Day. Now, he’s not some self-absorbed 17-year-old. He’s 26 years old. His response? Too busy, didn’t have any stamps, the post office was always closed by the time he got off from work, etc., etc., etc. Sorry, those excuses just don’t work. It goes the same with every member of my family. Despite every effort I have always made to let someone know that he or she was special, I never received one in return. OK, so I’m having my own little pity party here, but I’ve finally gotten the message. I don’t count.

      This year I received my very own special twist-the-knife-in-my-heart realization. My younger sister a few years ago told me to never write her any more letters—she didn’t have the energy or the desire to respond. Now, you’d have to know her situation. She has major issues and lots of baggage. When she was much younger, many years ago, she battled anorexia long before most people even knew what it was. At the time, there was a general consensus of the family that it was all my fault. I treated her terribly when we were growing up. We were four years apart and I was not a very nice big sister. But truth be told, I treated everyone in my family pretty terribly. I was an asshole. Everyone was equally treated to my angry outbursts and ugliness. What did I know? I was a self-absorbed kid and, later, teenager. And things didn’t change much after I got older and moved out for a long while. Yes, I was battling my own demons benefitting from belonging to one of the most dysfunctional family units I ever knew. But, as I got older, especially after I became a parent, I tried to make peace with everyone in asking for their forgiveness for the way I treated them. I was getting on with my life and it was time to put the past behind me. These people were the only family I had. I had to find a way to make peace with them…they were all I had.

      Well, I respected my sister’s wishes and ceased writing. The standard party line in the family was that my younger sister behaved differently—just accept it for what it is and move on. She had never really recovered from her battle with anorexia and it colored the way she lived the rest of her life. I wasn’t the only one in the family that she treated weirdly, but it did seem to me that I bore the brunt. My mother’s response? Just give her the space and ignore it. However, I really didn’t think that her request to cease and desist the letter-writing included birthday cards. After all, doesn’t everyone send people birthday cards? A week after her birthday this year, I received something in the mail from her. When I saw the handwriting on the envelope, I was excited. I didn’t even wait to get home from the Post Office. I opened up right then and there. To my utter shock, she had returned my birthday card unopened along with a very hurtful letter basically screaming to leave her the hell alone. In part she wrote, “…you really don’t have to make such gestures because all I want from you is to leave me alone.” There was more written—words that cut through my heart. Now, try to keep this in mind…she’s 48 years old. Maybe someone should tell her, “By God, just grow up and deal with it and get on with your life.” But no one in the family would ever say that to her (God only knows the number of times my own mother would tell me that when I would hit low points in my life later and was wrestling with resurfaced, old memories that brought back hurt and pain from the hands of someone else in my family. According to her, all of the pain I had experienced, and trust me when I tell you that there was one situation that caused me considerable pain that caused me to seek serious therapy much later—but that all my hurts were of my own making).

      My mother actually defended those who hurt me over the years. The most ironic part revolved around the fact that these family members were “Christians,” and that, yes, I was forgiven. But how does that speak to the fact that when I called my mother on various occasions to try to glean some understanding to why certain family members actually cut me out of their lives in a very public and ugly fashion, out of the same mouth I was again reminded of how cruel I was when I was much younger. Where is the forgiveness there? I know that people can forgive yet not forget—I get that. But to have the past thrown in your face yet again as the reason why I was getting treated the way I was is a far cry from what I understand where a true Christian’s heart should be if they have forgiven you. I look back to a horrendous experience I suffered as a five-year-old at the hands of a family member. For years, I suppressed those memories. Later, after coming out of the fog of a drug-addicted lifestyle, I confronted my mother. I asked her why this happened to me. I asked her why it was swept under the rug and never talked about. I was the innocent victim and now, years later, I was only then dealing with the raw emotions that were just being brought to the forefront. Her response? She first tried to deny that it ever happened, but I wouldn’t let her get away with that. Then she said she refused to dredge up the past and wouldn’t discuss it with me. All I was looking for was some measure of comfort, love and support, and the door was slammed in my face.

      To make matters even more clearly defined as to where I stood in the pecking order, a few years after that fated phone call, I was invited to my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary party. I was living far away by that point in my life and plans had to be made to take the time off. Assuming that everyone in the family, far and wide, was being invited, I felt it was fair of me to ask if this particular family member would be there. I had not been in the same room as this person since all those horrible memories finally resurfaced. I wasn’t sure how I would handle seeing this person again. My mother’s response? She got angry with me and told me that I had better not make a scene. I was shell-shocked. Well, I knew how important this event was to my parents, so I rose to the occasion and attended and I behaved like a good little girl. Everything was always about appearances with my mother. We always had to behave like good little boys and girls in public. After all, my mother was the president of the Officer’s Wives Club, the president of the PTA. What would people think?

      I mentioned forgiveness earlier. A few years later, I came to know the Lord as my Savior. I learned what it meant to walk with the Lord. The first time I really read and understood the Lord’s Prayer when I first encountered it in the Bible (I was brought up as a “good little Catholic girl,” but back then, all those prayers just rolled off my tongue by rote), I understood that I couldn’t expect the Lord to forgive me of my sins if I wasn’t able to forgive others who sinned against me. I thought about the pain and hurt that this family member caused me and I wanted to let go of all that emotional suffering. I wanted to be able to truly forgive. I prayed very hard about that and asked the Lord to help me reach a point where I could honestly forgive and move on. He answered that prayer, and soon, all of those emotions just became distant memories. Even writing about it now does not evoke any emotional tug with me. No, I don’t think I will ever forget what happened, but I just don’t think about it any more and I plain just don’t care any more. Only God could have given me that sense of peace. And today I can have a conversation with that person as if nothing ever happened. I don’t throw that experience in anyone’s face to justify how I once felt about that person. I forgave and moved on. That’s what I have come to understand what it means to forgive from a Christian perspective.

      Getting that note from my younger sister yesterday really brought back every single painful memory I have of my family—both as a child and then even years later as we grew up and went our separate ways. We’re not really a family any more. Of all of the family members out there I would have to say that the one tie that binds us all together in some fashion is my mother. I’ve kept a close relationship with her. I’ve stayed in touch with my older sister from time to time, but it’s very limited. A phone call here and there, the rare email. My older brother and his wife are in a world of their own. I think he redefined his image of what family is after he and his wife set up house out West. He never reaches out to me (or pretty much any one else in the family with perhaps the exception of my mother); I’ve always been the one to initiate any communication. And you’ve already learned that I have been excommunicated from my younger sister. And forget about extended family members. Oh, my niece and nephew are, of course, close to my older sister, and my niece knows she’s the fair-haired child having produced my mother’s great grand children. But I am still persona non grata in her eyes (I quit asking what I ever did to earn that position—again more dysfunction—my older sister won’t talk about it and specifically forbade me from confronting my niece).

      That pecking order I mentioned? I think I am pretty far down the rung. In everyone’s eyes, all of the dysfunction is my fault. I am somehow responsible for everyone’s major pain. At least I came to that conclusion when I talked to my mother yesterday about my younger sister’s response to my birthday card. With very few words, she simply reminded me of just how ugly I had been to everyone, so what else could I expect. She very gallantly reminded me that now I was a good Christian and I was just going to have to let all of that go (while out of the same mouth still defending everyone’s actions to me).

      Well, she is right. I do have to let it go. God has blessed me this year quite extraordinarily. I received from Him a very personal miracle that saw me through the worst situation I ever had to deal with when I was suddenly laid off with a 60-day notice in May. I got to experience what it truly meant to just simply trust in God. I had no idea how I was going to survive being unemployed, but I knew in my heart that I wasn’t going through this journey alone. I knew God loved me and only wanted the best for me. Even knowing that I faced losing everything, all I wanted was to do what was God’s will for me in my life. If that meant losing everything, so be it. All I had was my trust in Him. My miracle? 55 days into that 60-day notice God blessed me with another job, one that was better than the one I lost.

      Yes, today I am hurting. My emotions are raw. My worldly reaction is to spurn away everyone in my family. But that will only hurt me in the long run. If I choose that road to walk down, I am letting Satan rob me of all of the joy I received from the incredible blessing God bestowed upon me. God will see me through this pain. He will heal my heart. He will show me yet again how to forgive the unforgivable. My concept of family will change. I may not have much of an earthly family anymore, but I have something far greater. I am a child of God, and I am part of His family. There is nothing greater.

      And birthday cards? Well, I have to learn to lower my expectations. There will be many who won’t be receiving cards from me anymore, but I can live with that. God knows my birthday even before He created me. That’s good enough for me.©2009


22 August 2009

Yet Another Stab

       It’s been over two years since I made an entry. Why now? What thrust me in this direction? I just spent a couple of hours re-reading all of my entries and viewing the various comments. Some of the comments really surprised me after all this time. Evidently, with some of my entries, I hit a chord with some people. After reading them, there was a part of me that wished I could email them and ask what they had been up to since reading my blog. I wanted to ask them if they ever came back to my blog at a later time only to discover that I had stopped writing.

       Why did I stop writing? In 2007 I wrote furiously. There was this thirst inside of me that could only be quenched by putting words to all of the raw emotions flooding through me. Did I stop having emotions? Why did I shut down? What happened that suddenly quieted my frenzied thoughts? As I look back, I simply realized that I no longer felt creative; I had lost the desire to capture my experiences, thoughts, feelings in words. What fueled that torrid fury of creation just suddenly disappeared. I lost the impetus—the drive—to write.

       So why now? What changed in my life to draw me back to my keyboard? I guess everything. Did my life stop for two years? No. But I didn’t feel I had anything worth to say that merited the energy. In fact, I only have hazy memories of the intervening time. Yet, today, a simple phone call immediately pulled me into a downward, hurtling spiral that opened up so many other memories—emotions—from my past.

       This year has been, perhaps, one of the most difficult times in my life. In response to the general downward-trending movements in the economy, my company decided to reorganize in February. All that meant to me was entering into a frozen period of time just waiting for the Sword of Damocles to fall upon me. There is nothing so stressful than going to work each day just waiting to get “the phone call.” For three months, every single day, I had no idea if I would live to see another day of employment. Then the wait was over. My phone rang. CallerID told me it was my manager.

       You see, I work for a huge multinational company. Everyone in my area worked from a home office. Our teams were scattered all over the place. For two years, I worked like this. It was strange at first. I no longer had an office to which to report. Technology made this venue occur quite insidiously. Being able to VPN into the corporate network allowed all of us to be connected. We all were a simple ping away. Who needed phones when you could just ping someone online and get an instant conversation? Integrated audio and data conferencing allowed all of us to come together and work as a team. We could all join a meeting and share documents via a collaborative sharing application. My manager was so not a micro-manager. He left us all to our own devices, as he knew we were all good at what we did. We kept him in the loop when needed (as he put it, often enough just to keep him out of hot water); otherwise, I never had much one-on-one contact with him. He rarely initiated personal contact with me. In fact, when we did talk, I usually called him.

       Then he called. I let it ring a few times, quite hesitant to discover the purpose of the call. Needless to say, my worst fears were realized. There was no build up to the announcement; he simply told me that he had some bad news. There…the cat was out of the bag. My mind was reeling. I didn’t hear anything else he had to say. I had lost my job. Whoa, slow down…take a breath. I needed to pay attention. He told me that I would be given a 60-day grace period with which to find another position at my company if I could qualify.

       He said good-bye. I remember placing the handset back on the cradle, just staring straight ahead. I had been continually employed since 1993. I hadn’t job hunted in 16 years. I had no idea where to start. My head was swimming. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the rest of the day was a complete wash. And, to add insult to injury, I received my official notice from HR via email. The subject line: Surplus Notification Letter. They were kind enough to notify me that, due to the recent reorganization, there was no longer a position for me at the company. The document was actually 25 pages long (it’s quite amazing how the corporate entity cushions itself with legal trappings). Forms to fill out, pages to sign and notarize, specific steps I had to take to ensure my severance package (and that, in itself, was quite a joke). Gone were the days of putting in your 20 or 30 years and then retiring with the gold watch. No such thing as loyalty. What a cost-savings measure to make sure a company never held onto any of their employees long enough to invest a sizeable pension.

       I was numb for about a week. Then I pulled out my résumé. Fortunately, I had been keeping it up-to-date, so there was not an inordinate amount of work to prepare. But the employment landscape, I soon discovered, had altered quite dramatically during those 16 years. What the hell was a “functional” résumé? All of a sudden, I was attending workshops in how to “strategically” look for a new job. I laughed—quite inappropriately, I might add—when I realized just how crowded these workshops were. I was stuck in quicksand. I was so ill prepared for this journey, and my tank was absolutely empty.

       The weeks flew by. There was nothing locally. Hell, there was nothing nationally. All of the positions posted on my company’s Intranet were totally out-of-reach. What was actually rude was to find my title out there posted (one of 47 positions in that category). But when I read the description, all of a sudden my job description required all of these new technical certifications. I had become obsolete. That directly affected my marketability across the board as I faced this same situation with every other company that had openings in my area. It had become an employer’s market. Companies could now command top-notch requirements at high school graduate’s pay. Oh, I was very qualified at what I did and was damn good at it. But everyone changed the rules. Despite my college degree and years of experience, I was reduced to barely even qualify for a glorified secretary position.

        Those 60 days were speeding by. I had nothing to show for it. However, not all was lost. I actually had a friend that had worked for the company for 30 years (started right out of high school and worked her way up). With two weeks to go, she called me up and told me that her department had just been authorized by HR to open up two positions. She encouraged me to go online and view the posting and said that she felt I could do this job with my eyes closed. It was true, I had all of the necessary skills, but it was in an arena vastly different from where I came. What the hell, I had nothing to lose. I posted for it. In three days, that hiring manager called me at 1600 and indicated that he read my online résumé and asked me if I was interested in interviewing for the job. Like I’m gonna say no??? He said that he would have to interview me later that day as he would be going out of town the following day and would not be returning until after I was off the payroll. He was on the West Coast, so he said he would call me at 1900 my time.

        At 1845, I brought a large bottle of cold water into my office and just stared at the phone. I hadn’t been in an interview since 1992. During the time leading up to 1900 I put pen to paper to justify how my experience spoke to the specific job skills they were looking for. I even came up with a few important questions. While I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth, I wasn’t willing to take a job for which I was not prepared and qualified. It turned out that I was going to be tag-teamed interviewed with another manager (ah, the glory of the conference call feature). The interview went surprisingly well. I had a solid answer to all of the questions and received thorough answers to my questions. I was intrigued. All of a sudden, I did want that job and I knew I could exceed their expectations. 45 minutes later, I hung up the phone.

        I leaned back in my chair afraid to breathe. My heart was skating across my chest. Here it was approaching 2000 and there was just no way was I going to calm down and relax by my normal bedtime. As 2200 approached, I was sufficiently relaxed to sleep, sort of. When I walked into my office the next morning and logged in, I felt as if I was in limbo. Only three more days to go before I was unemployed. There really wasn’t anything for me to do. I had already turned over all of my responsibilities to other folks. The phone was quiet all day and the only emails I received were the inane corporate-wide announcement-type memos. The day crawled by unmercifully. After the requisite eight hours (at the height of my job, I never worked less than a ten-hour day), I logged off.

        Do you know what the first thought I had when I walked out of my office? I just simply wanted to roll a fat number and get high. Hadn’t thought about doing that in quite some time. Ever since the employment environment changed to requiring random drug tests, I quit smoking pot. What a sad state of affairs. Well, the point was moot; I certainly didn’t have any stash. At that moment, I fondly recalled what I told my son he had to give me as a retirement present—at least a quarter-pound of fine golden buds (oh, excuse me, my son once corrected my vocabulary on this subject. It was no longer buds vs. shake; it was nuggets vs. shwag. Gone were the four-fingered lids, and certainly gone were the four-fingered lids for $20…LOL. Anyway, I digress).

        The next morning my manager called me and let me know that HR had contacted him. That hiring manager decided to extend me the job offer. I was as much in a state of shock as I had been almost 60 days previously when he announced my lay off. I could finally exhale. My new position would become effective the day after my 60-day grace period—a seamless transition. I would begin a serious training program almost immediately. The amazing part was the fact that I would continue to receive the exact same salary and would still be an at-home employee. With the exception of a completely new job experience, absolutely nothing would change.

        Well, I have been in this new position now for seven weeks. It’s going to be an intensive job—a lot of hard work and long hours, but what a joy I feel in being able to get up in the morning and look forward to walking down the hallway to my office. The sword has been removed. No, the market has not suddenly changed for the better—there are far too many people without jobs. But I can face each day with a little bit more security than I had before.

        Oh, and about that phone call I received today that started this writing frenzy—recalling this incredible experience gave me a chance to put those all-of-a-sudden tenuous emotions welling up inside of me on hold. That story will have to wait for another day. Suffice it to say, it feels really satisfying to be able to sit at my keyboard again and be able to tell my story.©2009