Open Doors

There are certain little sayings that drive me crazy. One is ‘God will only give you as much as you can handle’. What about people who get depressed and commit suicide? They had more than they can handle, now, didn’t they? I just don’t believe that God is doling out the crap. As if she is sitting up on a throne saying “Hmmm, there’s Susie. I think I’ll send some cancer her way. I realize that her Mom just died and her home is about to be foreclosed on, but she’s strong. She can take it.” Maybe that’s why I didn’t like the book ‘The Shack’. (And yes, I know, billions did!). I have never believed that God makes bad things happen to people. ‘The Shack’ was like ‘GOD 101’ to me. Maybe it was written for people who believe in an archaic God who sends hellfire and brimstone, but I’ve just never believed in that type of God. I don’t believe in the Devil as an entity, either. I think it’s just the Catholic Church’s was to try to scare people into doing what they wanted them to do. And ruling out of fear is never a good thing. I think that people should learn to be good only for the sake of being good. So you can look at yourself in the mirror. So you can be proud of yourself and your behavior. Not because you are trying to avoid punishment. You should learn to police yourself. I’m not so sure I don’t believe in reincarnation, so maybe If you don’t learn that lesson, you have to repeat it until you get it right. All I know is that I am trying to get my issues worked out with my ex husband so that I am not doomed to repeat that relationship over and over. Selfish? Maybe. But it’s all good karma, right? Another saying that annoys me is “When God closes a door, He opens a window”. Sometimes it’s more like the door has been ripped off its’ hinges and there’s a twenty foot drop where the porch used to be. It sounds so easy, but in reality you usually have to pry that window open yourself. When I was in my mid thirties I was a stay at home Mom raising two kids, ages 3 and 8. One day my husband of 11 years (who had practically demanded that I quit my job a year or so earlier) decided that he no longer wanted to be married. Hmmmm. Time to regroup. I was very scared and knew that I had to go back to work but (for some reason ha ha) my self esteem was about a quart low. I found a nearby job as a payroll accountant. I had never done payroll before but actually talked my way into this job by telling them “I am a single Mom. I can do ANYTHING”. It worked. Thankfully I worked with a wonderful lady named Lilo who trained and befriended me. She is so cool and has lived all over the world. She grew up in Germany and lived in caves during World War II. Lilo had the best stories to tell and the best attitude. We still meet up for dinner now and then. The office was full of backstabbing, hateful women. After one of them was fired, another one told me, “You could be next’. I replied with ‘I guess any of us could’. She was gone the next week. Then, our boss was gone. We hired one more girl, Kelly, who was fantastic. Our old software system was crumbling and falling apart and we had no more technical support for it. Entire clients would just disappear in the system! We were in the process of setting up new software, and now it couldn’t wait. I was put in charge of setting up the new software and not only did I know nothing about payroll, I really didn’t know anything about computers at the time. I started dating a man who would Is now my husband around this time. He’d call me at night and ask how my day was. Every day was the same reply. “You know that scene in Indiana Jones when the giant boulder is chasing him and he’s about to die? Kinda like that.” With the help of Craig at tech support, I actually got it set up and running after many late nights and Indiana Jones days. Everything went well for a couple of years until they decided to sell the company. In the end, it was just me and Lilo running the place. There was a salesman left and a Worker’s Comp guy and then Lilo got another job and left. I hung around for another couple of months and one day got a call at work about an open position at another company. That’s where I am now. Obviously, in retrospect, this is the best thing that could have happened to me. Being dumped by Xman opened the way for me to meet Mr. Wonderful, whom I’ve been ecstatically married to for almost five years. I seriously had no clue that men like Mr. Wonderful existed outside of fiction or movies. Being forced to go back to work and in such insane conditions repaired my self esteem and made me happier in the long run. Sure, there were some long days when Lilo and I wondered if we were going to have to do our Christmas shopping at the convenience store next door. There were nights when I had to go pick my kids up at daycare and bring them back to the office, but I got it done. In ‘The Shack’, the God character talks about how although she isn’t the one that makes bad things happen, she can make good things come out of the bad things. I think we can all do that and in a sense, that sums up what I believe. I do like the saying 'I can't change the wind, but I can adjust my sails'. It’s not always what we had in mind. It’s not always what is the easiest, but it can all work out. And the irony? We can NEVER see it at the time. It's life funny?