Why I’m Better than the Lies I Tell Myself

We are our own best sabotagers, aren’t we? We feed into the lies we tell ourselves due to a number of different reasons. I’m in a new season of life where I’m constantly running into inspirational stepping stones which speak volumes for my self confidence. Don’t get me wrong, having self confidence and being boastful are two completely different concepts. Though, the end result of a task usually boils down to our self confidence which is the foundation of belief that we’re good enough, worthy enough to complete it in the first place. This is an area I’ve lacked greatly the past year in particular.

This time last year, I was working as a taxi dispatcher for a man who 1) took great pleasure in debating with anyone whose belief in God didn’t align with his– which he relentlessly denied there was one, and 2) treated his staff like soldiers in Nazi Germany. This man cut me down to size at every turn, and on many occasions held no qualms about berating me and my abilities via telephone at three o’clock in the morning. His alcoholism and addiction to video games occupied his time otherwise, when he wasn’t instilling fear of his superiority into the employees at his company. I’d worked so hard, given him extra hours of overtime and was first to volunteer when another dispatcher would be consistently late or call in altogether. By the end of November after making what I thought was a reasonable business decision, giving a hard working driver some much deserved reprieve, I’d been reduced to nothing more than pond scum and my confidence in doing any job at all made me inferior to the lies thrashing around my mind that I was not good enough to excel at anything ever again– professionally or personally.

“But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.” (2 Peter 2:1 ESV)

I cannot count how many times this egomaniac sent my blood pressure and anxiety through the roof of our ozone layer. While none of this is the key concept for today’s blog entry, it does however help me land the plane for my primary moral of the story. Sabotaging our truth. Whatever truth may be sinking into our hearts, it’s not there for no apparent reason. It’s there for when we finally decide to toss the rhetoric of failure by the wayside and give our full-self into something without fear, without deniability, just diving in head first.

This month has certainly spoken volumes to my self confidence practically more so than any other time in my life. While it hasn’t gone without some real heart-ache and deep conversations with God–even prayers in a different language I swear to Him that I have no recollection of its coherency–I’m coming out of the month stronger than I was entering it. And if anyone truly knows me, I have not been fond of the number nine. (September being the ninth month of the year). But by the grace of His Holiness, I am certainly coming out feeling like David after he conquered his giant with nothing more than a rock. Both professionally, and personally.

Something occurred to me last week, as I struggled in more than difficult waters, another lesson learned and I did something I hadn’t done since 2016. Any other time before my transition back to the Godly flow of things, I would have told myself I was not worthy of cooking something that required poultry. Each time I’d previously think of preparing something which requires the utmost care and consideration to temperature and storage, I’d remind myself that if I practically burn a pot of water, how could I cook chicken in the oven? However these days, budget conquers convenience and I needed to just do it because a carnivorous beast like yours truly cannot survive on salads with cottage cheese alone, and sliced deli meat is rather costly. Upon returning home from the grocery, I was presented with two cooking mediums. I have a decent sized Crock-Pot, which for one person is way big enough but you should know me by now if not personally, that my brain is only capable of an all-or-nothing mentality. Or I have an oven and pans to bake in, like people have done for centuries. I wanted so much to take the easy way out, giving thought to the allure of convenience. But something else, something more omnipotent [God] nudged me in the direction of baking my barbeque chicken thighs the old fashioned way. The method which required culinary brilliance I thought I hadn’t been worthy of. But I proved my inhibitions wrong, and boy am I glad I did.

Outside of looking up which temperature and time-frame online to bake chicken thighs, I did everything else by what my mind was guiding me to do. When my timer went off to remove the chicken, after the 45 minutes I’d been instructed to wait from online, I noticed most of the pieces remained relatively pink beneath the skin. So instead of panicking and throwing my fists to the heavens for sending me down the avenue of failure, I decided to keep a patient attitude and figured I’d let them cook another 20 minutes before removing to pour the sauce over them. This proved to be the appropriate approach. Sure enough, after allowing the extra time, they came out looking almost perfect and the extra 10 minutes of baking with the sauce slathered across them would be the right amount of time.

“[to] put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, [and to] be renewed in the spirit of your minds, [and to] put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:22-24 ESV)

Within minutes, I found myself settling in to enjoy the meal I’d prepared. Sure, it was no complex recipe and something most of you could have done in a state of sleepwalking, but I was happy with the result. I was so satisfied that I didn’t listen to the lies deep within telling me that I would mess up even the simplest of entree. This has further sparked my interest to dive back into a world of discovering my inner culinary self. Since I can now cook chicken the old fashioned way, come November, I aim to accomplish my next poultry mission. I have never cooked a turkey, but I figure at 32, it’s high time I stop self sabotaging myself and just go for it. All I truly need for that is a cooking thermometer, to ensure the inside is the temperature it should be.

And on the professional front, I am headed into this seasonal job on Monday with the confidence and patience that I am capable of achieving the necessary skills and knowledge required to do it with faith and confidence. It may only be customer service, but this is the most exposure to customer service I’ve had since mid last year.

I hope everyone has a wonderful new week upon us. It’s bound to get colder here in Colorado, as we welcome the changing of seasons with open hearts. If you have any good Autumn reads to enjoy under a nice weighted blanket, please send them in my direction.

Why McDonald’s Helped Me Understand People… Just Kidding!

I’ve had a busy week. Through the bedlam that is my life, you lack the insight into my formula– the method to the madness if you will. Within all this, I’ve been reading a book by Joel Osteen. Very slowly, I should make ostensible. Some of you know who I am and I don’t do anything slow– eat, walk, talk, breathe and yes…even read. But as I notice every new topic Mr. Joel discusses, I find myself gnashing on every lesson as if this book was solely intended for me. Well sir, you found me. Or I found you, only about a couple years later than the original publish date. Nonetheless you’ve got my attention and I promise you that I’m enjoying every word– jabs to my heart as they seem but whoever said the truth was supposed to feel like being smacked upside the head with a cloud?

Thus I’m on the new topic in this book, Everyday A Friday and I’m certainly putting together his tangible evidence that we can control our happiness in every second of the day. A month ago you could’ve struck me with the words “Just be happy, nothing is ever as bad as it seems” and I’d have probably used every gesture and innuendo to dispel such callous advice. Now I get it! “Clear as mud” as my adopted mom would declare.

I’m going to assume this happens to all of us–at least those of us with a pulse. Sometimes I can walk around and see the bad in everything. But am I searching for the good? Am I dwelling on such negativeness that it’s masked me from listening to what my heart really wants? Am I on the right path? Is God listening? Am I worthy? Am I handsome? Is anyone really listening to me? Do I matter? Does it matter that I matter? All but the latter shouldn’t be given any more brainwaves. What matters is that WE matter each and every single day. We may not matter to others, but that’s only as worth a grain of sugar in a whole field of cane. We matter to Jesus… The Son of God. And that’s worth more than twenty football fields of sugarcane. Hey, be proud of me. For he who lacketh interest in sports, sure can useth such metaphors! (see: Don’t look that up in the bible; #ItDoesntExist)

What it boils down to is misguided focus. As Joel Osteen explains (thus far in a nutshell) is that life is 10 percent action and 90 percent reaction. To paraphrase further, “We can’t control everything in life but we have the control over how we respond to everything.” It’s these simple morals drowning on every page that I find myself clinging to in order to get the most benefit out of reading his book. I never once did this to a Dean Koontz or Alex Kava novel. (Quite rightly, I wanted to get further faster so I knew what happened on the next page.) But this is different and for good reason. It means that God’s wanting me to take time and let it sink in… and I know God’s waited for me to read this for two years. Just as a cold wind blows to the east of The Rockies this bitter October night, I’m assured in the fact He’s applied every scenario thus far in Joel’s book to my daily life. End result? Pure brilliance (on all facets). The advice is not only simple everyday lessons we should have remembered and learned as kids (exceedingly mundane to most) but it’s also enriched my life. And friends I’m only on Page 26 for crying out loud!

Every day (those days that my disease hasn’t taken control of walking too far away from my bathroom) I pace into the workplace with a sinking feeling in my gut. This is gonna be terrible day. Look at this stack of faxes that haven’t been sent to the doctor’s offices. Look at how many scripts are left to still be filled. Ugh… It’s already 9 o clock? You mean I have to raise the windows up and start helping these ungrateful people? But I don’t think that anymore. And you shouldn’t either (even if you don’t work in a pharmacy you could flex any of this to suit your occupation. Now I wake up and send up a huge thanks to The Almighty. After all, He’s in charge of all. And He’s mightier than any of our issues here on His land. Usually by the time 10 o clock rolls around I’d be begging and pleading for a grip of sanity. Is it lunchtime yet? For having an hour of pure bliss away from the craziness that is for all intents and purposes purgatory with air conditioning, surely I’d regain enough stamina to withstand another four hours. I work with some pretty interesting people. I used to think of some of them like schoolyard bullies that get paid hourly to make me miserable. But I revert back to handy dandy Osteen– “When you allow what someone says or does to upset you, you’re allowing that person to control you.” Now I’ve given up the ghost on retaliating with my disparaging thoughts. Now I’d rather return in the same loving-kindness that Jesus would do. Well, okay let’s not go that far. I’m a germ-a-phobic and I’m not washing any feet. However I do smile back and just say, “Okay!” “Thanks so much for letting me know!” “How thoughtful of you to care so passionately about that.” “I value your input.”

Just today I returned from break where I’d sat inside the McDonald’s. Right now they’re running the annual Monopoly game and you betcha I’m collecting my properties like Noah did animals of all species. I’d won a couple free menu items that really don’t amount to much satisfaction on my part, I’d rather share in the joy of winning something for free and hand out the stamps to others. Today was a test that I’m sure God struck into me like a bolt of lightning. I pulled out a free medium fries and a free breakfast sandwich. As I walked back into Dante’s arctic inferno, I handed out the fry stamp to one coworker and told them they deserved to have a great lunch and now they could enjoy some free French fries courtesy of Mr. Monopoly-Man. But then onto Debbie downer… I knew what their response would be and I was right. I’d planned on handing it to my friend who bounces between two divisions of the building as a backup because I knew that ingratitude would shun away my offer of an amazingly free gooey McGriddle– and sure enough they frowned in the impetuous scoff as if they were above the awesome 500 calories wrapped in a thin brown piece of wax paper. Max Lucado hit the nail on the head when he said in his book Before Amen: “Nothing silences grumps like gratitude.”

Moral of this lesson brought to you by the two big authors in Christian non-fiction and my deliberately fast typing fingers? Well I can only speak for myself, but I’d hope you all find it in your hearts to try it too. I’m going to continue tackling adversity with a compliment. I will smile at darkness, for God’s light will shine out from the nooks of my expression and all will be alright. They don’t call it a “sunny disposition” for nothing. Sun means light. Disposition is broken into the latin prefix dis which means ‘to arrange’ when put together it means ‘to put arrangement of character.’

And that’s all he wrote… for at least tonight since I have to work in the morning– correction… I get to work tomorrow!