Flush it all away...

If I am so blessed,

why do I feel so un-blessed?

2016 is gone.  I feel like I have totally lost a year of my life. It was a year of feeling a total lack of control. It just happened, second by second, minute by minute, day by day and it was gone.

I have been away from my blogging for way too long. Writing is a way for me to clear my thoughts, and flush the toilet so to speak. I need to be real here.

It allows me to get rid of all that #@&% floating around in my brain, clogging up my thoughts and emptying it of pent up emotions. I need to flush away frustration, anger, and expectations, and allow happiness back again.

20 months ago, I agreed to help with clerical duties for a local non-profit group.  At first, I was strongly against doing it, against agreeing to be involved with a group that had hurt me before. But their need was great and I was excited to use my skills thinking that I would be able to help until someone else came along and took the job. I found out quickly that no one else wanted this job.

2016 was a year I turned my cheek

so many times, my face bled. 

I had notes written saying I needed to find a different place that wanted me. I had a hand written letter laid on my desk accusing me of creating something that would put several people in jail. I was told about conversations taking place with several people who said I was the worst thing to happen to this place. I was screamed at and called a liar by an 85 year old woman while sitting at a table with people I thought were my friends. I was set up to take a fall for something I played a small part in, even told I had to sit with my back to everyone in the middle of a room.

And I just kept coming back,

doing the work that needed to be done.  

I was making sure the bills got paid, the accounts got balanced, the taxes got paid, and the emails got checked. I took an office full of trash and made it clean and efficient. I poured 20 months of my life into it, knowing few cared, and realizing nobody else wanted this job.

It all stopped one day when a full grown man walked into my office and screamed at me, slamming his fist down on the desk with fury in his eyes, making a demand that I had no control over.  I was there all alone and he was between me and the door. That was the day I gave up. I was there doing the work, but my soul was hidden, buried deep behind a wall of survival.

And I just kept coming back, 

doing the work that needed to be done.

I didn't want to be there in the beginning and now 20 months later, I was still there. I found my self becoming very defensive, resentful and even worse, I didn't like myself anymore. It was hard to look in the mirror, I didn't like what I saw.

And I just kept coming back,

doing the work that needed to be done.  

Then along came an opportunity to walk away. There would be no more conversation about the huge responsibility that I would leave behind, no one, not even myself could talk me out of it. If it closed it's doors, then I could accept that, it would not be my fault or my burden anymore.

I am forever changed and I have a hard and painful road ahead of me.

But I feel at peace with it,

and ready to put forth the effort to make

2017 a BLESSED year.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:25 NIV

more to come...