God Is Good--All The Time

People who desire pity rather than growth, or escape rather than responsibility, often blame God for their failures. While I sometimes blame those who have maimed me for the limitations they have placed on my native abilities, I never blame God. He made me perfect, whole and good. He told me so and I believe Him. Other people have hurt me and I am less for it. However, that is on them and not on God.

God has also told me that He will allow nothing to happen to me that I cannot survive. He may allow me to be murdered but I will rise and live forever with Him. Not only that, but He has told me that He will allow no temptation to beset me that is greater than I can bear, that is more than those common to all human beings. I also believe this is so.

What has caused me the most sorrow I have ever endured is not being imperfect, being hurt, being maimed, or even being killed. What has caused me the greatest sorrow is my seeming inability to find my proper place in the world. Striving first to be a duck, and then a swan, and then a fish, and then a bat, and then...discovering that no one will accept me in any of these roles, I am worse than an Ugly Duckling; I am a Nobody. No, says God, you are Somebody You Don't Know.

Okay, I never strove to be a bird, a fish or a beast. I did strive to be an entertainer, a counselor, a teacher, a technician, a builder and a hundred other things. I kept being fired from jobs. I tried with all my might to grow, to change, to improve. I went to college. I went to trade school. I earned certificates. I found jobs or they found me...and then I got fired. Every time.

"What is wrong with me?" wailed the Ugly Duckling. "Why do I have this long, geeky neck? Why do I have this stupid Unibrow?" "Because," God replied, "you are not a duck at all but a swan."

Okay, I say, so I'm not a singer. I must be a teacher. Okay, so I'm not a teacher. I must be a counselor.

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I have a basket full of talents. I put them on the ground, one at a time, to try to fit them together. First the ones with corners, then the ones with a straight edge. Try as I might, I can't seem to define a space within which the puzzle must come together as a cohesive whole. I've got all these parts, and they don't fit together! Someone at the factory must have f***ed something up! What other explanation could there be? No, I never blamed God. Someone sabotaged my kit--that's what happened! Somewhere along the line, when I wasn't looking, someone switched some bastard parts for the ones I was supposed to have! I was supposed to be better looking; I was supposed to have different feet; I was supposed to be hip, not clueless; I was supposed to have good breath. At least, I was supposed to be interested in doing the sorts of things that I'm good at (or good at doing the things that interest me)! Someone f***ed me up for a joke, and the joke's on me!

In truth, Someone did f*** me up--Satan. First He did it to my ancestors, Adam and Eve, then He did it to my other relatives, then He did it to me. And the joke's on all of us. But God didn't do it. He's not to blame. And neither are we.

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I suffered a painful blow when my job at the Scout Ranch ended. It hurt a lot. I'd held out such a fervent hope that this would be a successful effort and that it would yield a bountiful harvest of job offers or referrals. Instead, it yielded only thorns and further rejection. I was bummed.

Then, I suffered a second blow. My computer died. A capacitor on the motherboard blew out and the Ghost in the Machine went bye-bye. Such is life. I had backed up some of the files, but only the most important ones. The rest--like my drivers, etc.--are "history". Not only was I unemployed; my chief avenue for job searches was kaput as well. (Expletive deleted.)

This past weekend, I suffered yet another blow. That one sent me careering over The Edge of What I Can Stand. A niece of mine, whom I have always liked a great deal, got married. (No, that part is fine. A woman should marry.) She invited practically the whole town. (That's fine too; her folks are rich and she's popular, so why not?) She specifically excluded me (and my family) from the guest list. (Ouch!)

The computer was just a booger in the nose of convenience: neither good nor bad, just one of those events that tends to eliminate (as opposed to "illuminate") history. The other two events, however, fit a pattern.

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"Even in the midst of rejection and sorrow, there is grace." I wrote that in a letter to a friend. Whether I quoted someone else or made it up, I may never know.

These are the "pricks" that God used to ventilate my durable film of denial. For decades, I have striven to obtain, maintain and retain jobs for which I am not suited. God promised me long ago that, if I put Him first in my life, He will give me the desires of my heart. He didn't promise me what my heart desires; he promised that he would give me the desires. First, though, I have to put Him first in all things. That entails prayer; that prayer entails asking for those desires.

I lost the job at the summer camp because I am tactless in dealing with Scouts and their adult leaders. I've lost countless other jobs for similar reasons. My niece didn't want me at her wedding because I have lavished unwanted attention on her and ignored her hints that it wasn't welcome. Frankly, I was oblivious to the fact that I was offending anyone. That, I suppose is the whole point. Anyone suited to the sorts of careers I have pursued--whether entertainment, or sales, or human services--would not be oblivious. S/he'd be aware. Very aware. "Hip" as we used to say. I'm not hip. I'm not even "hep". I'm clueless. I need to rethink my entire game plan. I can't work with the public; I'm going to piss people off.

So where is the grace? It's in showing me the ugly truth about myself that I couldn't or wouldn't see before. It's in saving the really hard stuff until now, when I could deal with it. It's in making sure that I had people around me to keep me together and spare me the sure consequences of my own oblivion in an unprotected world. There is grace all around. God is good...all the time.