Stormy Seas Shape Strong Sailors

Life has not been easy lately. I moved out of the house I’ve lived in for almost twenty years for starters, which packing and memories makes hard enough, but I did it to follow a job in a new city. I’ve wanted to get out of Houston for awhile now, and my fiancé did too, and with this job we did it in less then a month from deciding to actually moving. Phew. 

 I went first by two weeks and moved into a place some relatives said we could stay in while we got our feet under us again. The job was exciting, (decorating cakes at a bakery!) and I looked forward to learning more and getting better. It was lonely at home with just me and the cats, but Andrew would come as soon as his lease was up and I talked with him and my parents almost every day, which was comforting.

But on my third day there, someone at the bakery had some serious health issues come up, and I was moved from cakes to making cookies. Okay. Not what I wanted to do, but it was what they needed, so I did it. The dough wasn’t perfect (although the cookies tasted good) but each time I did it I thought I got better. The guy who was ill got well enough to come in more and I hoped I’d get to go back to making cakes.

A month after I started, they fired me. Apparently I made too many mistakes doing a job I wasn’t hired to do. And I only have vague ideas what the mistakes were, because I could feel the tears in my eyes and I wasn’t about to stand there and cry in front of my former boss.

I’m still mad, and sad, and now Andrew and I are in a new town, in a new house, and I’m back to hunting down a job and feeling borderline useless. Sucks is not strong enough a word, but I don’t want to spread any of the others.

Stormy Seas Shape Strong Sailors

That was the header of an email I got this morning from one of the (many) authors help guides I follow. Usually I don’t open them, but this one I did. The man who sent it got a t-shirt for his birthday with Stormy Seas Shape Strong Sailors on it, and he talked about how the rough patches in our lives shape us into stronger people. I’d heard it before, I think most people have, but today it hit a little harder. Because when you’re in those stormy seas, you feel ready to capsize. You’re on the brink of going under and all that doubt and fear and worry swamps you left and right and tosses you on endless loops of what if.

It’s hard. Suckerpunch hard. But bearing up under the weight is what makes you stronger. It doesn’t feel like it – if anything right now I feel pummeled – but previous experience tells me that’s still true. So if you’re in the same boat with me (only the boat’s got holes in it and you’re wet up to your neck) just keep your head above water. These storms make us strong.

I’ll be praying for you,

Bethany R.