serious face.

you have a choice today. two blogs posts from me, in one day. one serious. one ridiculous.

what are you in the mood for?

this one is serious.

my job is destroying me. at least i feel like it is. there are so many reasons why, but i'm not going to get into that.

this past week in church, my pastor said something that i was really thankful for. i get the feeling that people are waiting for me to "get over" the fact that my job sucks. and that's ok. i know it's because you want me to be happy at work, because i'm there 50 hours a week. but my job isn't going to get better, and there's no reason for me to expect it to.

optimism is not a Christian perspective.

at least not when you're looking to a situation in your life, and trying to find some golden nugget of goodness to make yourself feel better. we live in a broken world. i am a sinner, and i work for and with sinful people.

the hope that i have comes from looking to Christ. it does not come from looking at my job, and thinking "maybe it's not so bad." it is so bad.

i was also reminded that pessimism isn't very Christian either.

today while i was taking a shower (for some reason the time of day when i have my deepest thoughts...), i remembered three good things about my current situation.

1) i made twice as much money as i did last year. God has provided the amount of money i need to pay my bills. i can't afford a new car. i can't afford to save much. but i'm so grateful to not be asking my parents for money anymore.
2) i am learning about what kind of work environment i hate. this is good because in my next interviews, i will be able to ask better questions before accepting a job that destroys me.
3) i am learning the depths of my sinfulness. if i didn't have this job, i would still be thinking i'm pretty awesome. i mean i've always known i'm not the best person ever, but i thought i had pretty good control of some certain sins in my life. as it turns out, i do not. i have a lot of pride. i don't like being talked town to, i don't like being pushed around by coworkers. some days i choose to demand "my rights" instead of letting them have their way. some days, actually every day now, i see that it's more important for me to be right, than it is to just let things go.

it's interesting how often i have to repent because of a bad attitude that actually comes from me being in the right. apparently, God is more concerned with making me more like Christ than He is about me being right.

today i had to remember that this is what's more important to me too.

it's a really bad environment. it's draining me mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

if you ask me how work is, you're never going to hear a positive thought. i am trying to accept this, and i need you to do that too. if you ask me how my life is...that's different! there are so many things i can smile about.

but i cannot put a pretend positive spin on work. if you have asked me about my job in the past 9 months, and i have said it's "fine" or anything good like that...i was not telling you the truth. because nobody wants to hear the truth.

i struggle daily in so many ways. and sometimes it's so hard to wind down from work, that it's hard for me to see clearly how God is working in this situation. but today i see it clearly. and i wanted to make a note of it.

now go read my post about sexy mythical creatures.