Jewells of Thought

Failure. Sometimes I feel like one. Life is not always easy and even with love and support; wrong turns still happen. Even though I know things just happen it also feels like everything is going against me at times.

Recently I had to take time for my sanity and my health because of a job. Never before in my life did a job literally make me sick. There is a lot more to this situation, but my fear of doing the wrong thing and being judged by coworkers affected me in ways I had only heard of from others. The job itself was a good job and I learned a lot, however, personnel and their character is a big part of being a cohesive unit which was not happening.

Trust among coworkers is a must in a team setting that I had to step away from. In all my time as a cashier I respected my coworkers and worked with them. They have caught me off guard with some of their humbling comments. It felt good to have several of them comment on missing me working next to them. My relationships with those cashiers still have meant a lot to me through the years.

Is this a failure on my part? The nurse practitioner says I did the right thing for my health. Unfortunately the pills she prescribed for me for the various effects of the ulcer conflicted with a couple of my general medications. Another reason to add to my worry list at the time. Yet knowing how this affected my body… Why do I feel like I am somehow a failure?

Ironically, some comments I have heard from other writers over the years have flown through my mind. According to Romans 8:28 everything happens according to God’s purpose. Personally, going through things has allowed me to deepen my skills of telling stories, real accounts of real people.

In those last couple of months working in that stressful situation, there were times I had moments thinking I should be at home writing about these ideas. I don’t always understand where these ideas intersect or how I seem to easily see the story behind the story. So what if the purpose of this job was to give me experience, but to also give me relevance or a way to increase my ferocity for my use of words. My mom likes to remind me that someone has even said that ‘I have a way with words”.

So… was this a failure or was God redirecting me?