From Pain to Pearls

I was a mere youngin’ working at a firm in downtown picturesque Charleston, South Carolina on the notorious Church Street.  How I loved walking to my job from the parking garage.  I could close my eyes and envision with perfect clarity the southern belles gliding up and down the street in their pristine satin taffeta gowns.   I could see and hear the horse drawn carriages making their way up and down the brick streets with a clippety-clop.

I worked for a curt jewish gal who was very demanding.  Her name was Jenny.  My life, (I thought), was falling apart.  Gary was deployed for 6 months unexpectedly with the U.S. Navy.  (Damn, the bad luck)! I had to unpack a crap load of boxes and set up our household by myself without a stitch of help, which later became a common practice.  Furthermore, I had to store half of our belongings in the attic, and it was HOTTER THAN HADES! Each step up the ladder another bead of sweat formed on my brow and dripped down my face.  With every box I lugged up the ladder, the more incensed I became.  We’d come face to face with humidity.  No need for bathes!  I got one every single time I stepped outside or ascended up the ladder into the attic and sauna-land.  Just lovely, I muttered…

Furthermore, we had to move into a two-bedroom duplex that was the size of a matchbox because rentals were sky high in the early 80’s.  The place was so small I could prop my feet up on the coffee table directly in front of our brick fireplace and singe the hair right off the top of my toes.  

If that wasn’t bad enough, my precious little multi-colored blue and white parakeet Sampson caught a cold and passed away.  I was devastated!   Even more so when his little yellow and white mate, Sara, followed him, I suspect of a broken heart.  She missed her long time companion.

My life was falling apart, so my young mind thought.  I cried and grieved over my two little parakeets deaths of whom I had grown so attached.   And, I was incredibly resentful that I’d lost my pets and had to move into a cracker box in HUMIDITY FROM HELL, with no husband.  I went to work one day lamenting to Jenny about my sorry life.  She offered no sympathy. Not. ONE. Word! But,…she did utter a few words to me I’ve never forgotten:  “NONE OF US WOULD GROW IF LIFE WERE ALWAYS CUSHY AND NICE,”Jenny curtly said with firmness in her voice.

I resented those 12 words.  They certainly weren’t what I WANTED to hear.  Far from it.  After all, my life was falling apart; my world caving in.  Couldn’t she show a minute bit of compassion?  How about some comfort for my crappy circumstance? NOPE!  NOT. A. SINGLE. SOLITARY. WORD!  

But, I got over it.  As I look back, she was an angel unawares.  I needed those words to kick-start my behind into the right direction.  To pull up my boot straps, suck up the circumstance, and allow the pearl in me to be formed.  Since that short season of my life, the circumstances and adversity have gotten much more difficult and far less forgiving.  I’ve been battered by some good-sized battering rams, punched in the gut a few times-down for the count, and depressed from my so called sucky-life, but I’ve learned some darn good lessons in the process:

1. Life’s not all about US.
2. We don’t grow in the EASY times (when life is all cushy and nice).
3. Take life as it comes and learn from it.
4. Take the focus off of OURSELVES and ask God to show us who we can bless and encourage in their journey.

BECAUSE:  

There’s a miracle of transformation just waiting to happen within us when we choose to look beyond ourselves, suck up the hard times and be a blessing.

AND BECAUSE ONCE AGAIN:

Life’s definitely not all about us.  God places us in circumstances and places to be a blessing, to be a light, to change someone else’s world, if we can just look beyond the tip of our own noses!