A Discovery

So this morning, I was pondering prayer, and I noted that one of my most memorable times to pray was when my time at US Cellular was coming to an end. That job was good for a time, but it didn't end well, and I found today that I still have quite a bit of bitterness over it that I need to get past. I guess I knew that already, but it hit me kind of hard this morning when I prayed about it.

The thing with USCC is that I had a supervisor that was terrible. Easily the worst I've ever had and hopefully the worst I ever will have. They were obviously looking to get rid of me as I received disciplinary stuff for all kinds of weird "offenses." My car's transmission decided to crap out on me, and so I was late because I had to limp that car back home, and get the other one along with waking every up so that the Queen could keep it. Written up for being late because "I always have an excuse." I was also written up for being late...during an ice storm and when the highways were completely snowed under.

Anyway, having been written up for this and actually setup on an official company performance improvement plan for failing to take responsibility for my actions (I suppose the transmission failure was my fault to an extent, you know - I should have known it would make me late), I was rather flustered. I prayed now and again about it, but it kept getting worse, and the stress of being on the verge of job death just made me lash out. Finally, I was past the date when it was supposed to have been reviewed. I had switched supervisors. I thought everything was going well, but it was still hanging out there. I finally said, "God, I don't know know what is supposed to happen with this, but thy will be done." I went to work, and shot off an email asking that the improvement plan be put to rest one or the other since it was past the date. I was fired the following day. How do you explain this in an interview? You can't say they were out to get you, because that doesn't fly. Easy answer. You don't. My official reasoning? "They said I wasn't dynamic." Not a lie either. That was part of their reasoning for firing me (along with clearly having issues with a female supervisor - yeah, they accused me of being sexist as well, which I did not include in any interviews). Yeah, I got a lot of confused looks.

But the lesson here is that after struggling for months at that job, I finally left the whole situation in God's hands, and he acted. Now, I'm in a job that is loads better than US Cellular. There is no comparison between the two. In less than a year, I was back up to the pay rate I had before. The hours are better. The management is better. The work I do is better. And here's the kicker: I didn't apply for it. I had my resume out on a couple sites, but this job is not one that I even knew about. I was contacted, interviewed, and hired based on the title of my job at US Cellular. And to top that off, that title actually had very little to do with this job.

God had a plan to improve my life at that time, and all I had to do was turn it over to him and let him do it. I still find that amazing.

But I was still fired for a stupid reason.

Book News Release

As I've said, these posts are not so much for the self-promotion, but more what I've been finding as I pray more often. I mentioned the press release a couple days ago. Well, I've gone from zero knowledge about how to write a press release to having one completed now. It reads very smoothly and despite the fact that I cannot provide any reviewers' quotes, it seems fairly promising. I am rather proud of it considering, like I said, that I'd never written one before. I simply asked for the creativity to pull it off.

I'll be sending it around to news outlets to see where this goes. If I'm on track, then this will bring some impressive results. If I'm blowing smoke and thought it up on my own, then not much will happen with it. We shall see.

Imagine

I heard once that when you have a song go through your head, it might be God trying to communicate with you, especially if that song is completely random (from your point of view). This morning, I had a completely random song go through my head. I cannot think of anything I encountered that would have inspired this particular song, so I figured I would give it a listen and see if there is anything to it.

I would say there's some truth within these lyrics. Just like it is easy to take something out of context, it is just as easy to place something into too much context. John Lennon was a flower child and a half, to be sure. He was all about peace and love during the Vietnam War, and really against pretty much everything with any level of organization (you know, like the Beatles -- I digress).

Probably Lennon's biggest single hit was the song Imagine. As long as you don't pop the song into Lennon's personal context too much, you can glean his intent as well as fell the divine inspiration he was given (whether he knew it or not -- that's just how God works). From a global perspective, Lennon imagines there is nothing that makes people fight against each other. He believes that if none of these things existed, then there would be peace because people would have nothing to fight about. There is some merit to that thought, but with a complete absence of all of these things, we end up with anarchy. People need a direction of some kind. Fortunately, if we abolish everything on earth, we still have the guidance from Jesus.


Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

In verse one, he debunks heaven and hell. Lennon himself probably did that on purpose to shy off all the uber-religious types, but look at WHY he says it. Note that the lyrics don't exactly say it's wrong to believe in heaven or hell, they only say "imagine." "Imagine all the people living for today..." That should sound familiar. Jesus said not to worry about tomorrow, for it will worry about itself. (Matthew 6:34).

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

Here, he tosses out countries and religion. Those are probably the two largest causes of war. People have their boundaries and in a quest for more power, they invade other countries. Those boundaries define who people are and how different they are from one another. And the establishment of religion makes the same kinds of boundaries and some even evoke violence. The crusades are the Christian example of violence related to religion and in modern history, 9/11 would not have happened if not for religious differences.

This would make one point a finger and state that I'm being religious here. Well, religion is an establishment and words are words. I view what I do as a lifestyle since I live it daily. I don't claim a specific denominational separation in my Christianity. At the same time, Jesus discouraged violence, making the "Christian" crusades actually wrong. He also discouraged forcefully "converting" anyone to what He taught. There are multiple examples of Him allowing people to walk when they couldn't do it, His teaching states that His way is a narrow path, and He even taught His apostles to not force the teaching on who they taught. They were to kick the dust from their shows as they left. Hardly a violent outlook.

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

This last actual verse continues to echo Jesus' teaching. Mark 10:17-31 tells of a rich, young man that came to Jesus and asked what he had to do to follow Him. The man had followed the commandments of Moses, but Jesus told him to get rid of his possessions. The guy was not able to do it. He wasn't able to "imagine no possessions" as Jesus encouraged. Besides, in Christ, we're a family -- a "brotherhood of man" as it were. At the end Matthew, Jesus tells the apostles to go into all the world.

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one

It appears that Lennon wasn't the only one. It appears that Jesus beat him to the punch a long, long time ago.