Hold Me, Jesus

"Hold Me, Jesus" by Rich Mullins

When things fell apart for me at work last year, I can only describe it as running into an invisible wall.  Like I was just sort of frolicking along (metaphorically) at a good clip and then all of a sudden, WHAM.  All momentum smashed into a wall I hadn't even known was there and then slid down in a semi-comical smear.

Maybe a bit like that, truck-kun.

While dealing with a lot of nearly incandescent rage and grief in the aftermath, I also still did work.  Maybe not as well as I had been, but we got all the things done, and most people likely didn't even know I was having such a rough time.  I did my best to protect those not involved from experiencing that anger and loss. 

But I was (and still am) really stalled out.  I thought I would spend the rest of my career in that place with that department doing those things I spent 13 painstaking years building up expertise in despite the brain fog and the pain and the imposter syndrome.  And now that feels completely gone, like that entire path on the other side of the wall has just been obliterated.  So it's not about picking up the pieces and healing and climbing over and carrying on.  It's about something completely different.  It's about figuring out what's next when everything I thought was next is gone.  It's about facing the truth and figuring out who and how to trust.  

My leadership made choices that, in the end, sabotaged my career and led me to smash into that wall.

How am I supposed to trust them going forward?  How am I supposed to trust ANY leadership to help me accomplish my goals?  SHOULD I even try?

My leadership seemed nice and like they cared about me as a person, and that's important when you're dealing with as much disability as I am.  I know that.  I am grateful.  And they've let me do some great stuff with a multi-site impact.  

But their job is also to help me reach my career goals, and they did the opposite.  

Not out of malice; just out of incompetence.

But that makes it worse, in some ways.  

Maybe it's my fault for trying to get promoted despite all the physical headwinds.  Maybe I lost sight of the fact that my goal was to do work I liked, make a certain amount of money, and then cut back to 4 days a week in an attempt to lengthen the amount of time I will be physically capable of working (maybe even until retirement age).  Maybe my hope that since I seemed to be really successfully doing the next level of work I might have a chance to get that impossible promotion if it ever came was my downfall.  Maybe . . .

And maybe what I had wasn't hope but optimism.

Maybe . . . 

All I know is right now I'm definitely in that place where I need Jesus to be my Prince of Peace, not just King of My Glory.

And no lie, as I typed that, the next song on the randomized playlist was Hold Me Jesus by Rich Mullins from his A Liturgy, A Legacy, A Ragamuffin Band Album where it holds the place of the Dona Nobis Pacem in the Liturgy.  I was planning this post around that song, but that kind of coincidence feels like an invisible hug helping me hold it together after such a hard fall.

And now I'm crying.  And not out of rage.  As long as I don't poke at the details too much, the rage has mostly gone.  Honestly, it was just gone as soon as I moved in here for the year.  It was almost magical.  Sometimes running away is exactly the right thing to do, and even when it's not, it's good to know Jesus is holding me.