Miracles: How Many Have You Had?

While reading The Secret today, I came to a section in the book that discussed miracles and being thankful for them. Miracles.

They are the moments when something so amazing and unexplainable happens to you that you are in total awe. It's like walking down the street, finding a beautiful gift wrapped box and finding that the tag on the box says: To: You (fill in your name) From: The Creator. And when moments like these happen, it's like you look around to see if it's for real; you're rubbing your eyes in disbelief as you stare in shock at the gift. Then, you open it, and it was just what you needed at that exact moment in your life.

I've been thinking about the miracles that have happend in my own life.

In 2005, I had had it up to there with my boss's bullying ways.

After working five years as an office manager at his business, he chose to blame me when his front desk was left unstaffed after a new hire left work early on the same day he had excused me to take a personal day. Having obtained his permission to take a personal day at about six that morning, I proceeded with handling the emergency I had taken off of work for and pushed all else from my mind.

I returned to work the next day only to be berated by my boss as he yelled, "I was calling you on your cell phone yesterday. _____ left early yesterday at lunch time, and there was no one to cover the front desk. This can't happen again!"

A knot bunched in my stomach as I looked at his angry face and the fury blazing in his eyes.

"But you gave me permission to take yesterday off. You and I talked about it long before ____ did what she chose to do. What she did has nothing to do with me," I insisted.

"But you're the office manager!" he bellowed. "This is not supposed to happen! You two need to call each other when one of you needs to be out to take care of an emergency. You need to coordinate amongst yourselves so that my front desk is never left unstaffed!"

I couldn't believe my ears.

"But that doesn't make any sense. You already granted me permission to take the day off. There was no need for me to talk to her about my needing to take off for an emergency if I already received permission from you and you are the boss! And furthermore, I've worked for you for five years. This person has been here two months, and you're attacking me because she chose to leave early? If anything, you're issue should be with her."

He was berating me in front of the entire staff, and a few early morning customers, too.

For all the responsibility I was saddled with at that job (payroll, employee benefits, billing, collections, scheduling, tracking outstanding monies owed, writing narratives, training new employees, choosing x-rays and fighting insurance companies for every unpaid penny they owed the boss, working late nights and holidays) I had no privileges and no authority.

I started out earning $11 dollars an hour, and during my tenure, an exemplary job performance yielded me two $1.00 raises, which meant that after five years of working for this man, my compensation consisted of $13.00 an hour, skimpy HMO health benefits, a 30-minute lunch break during which I was expected to answer phones, handle payments, write receipts, and perform other work as needed, and one week of paid vacation. At Christmas I received a bonus check of $100.00.

The job offered no privileges and no incentives to stay.

"You're the office manager!" he exclaimed again as he continued to antagonize me.

"I have so much responsibility here, and no privileges," I responded.

"Your job is your privilege!" he snapped.

"I don't feel like we're seeing eye to eye anymore and I'd like to go ahead and give you my two week notice," I said quietly.

"TWO WEEK NOTICE?! I don't want no two week notice! You make a choice right now! Either you want to stay, OR THERE'S THE FRONT DOOR!!" he screamed, pointing towards the exit. "And you got a mortgage to pay?" he sneered sarcastically, "You make your choice right now!"

Caught offguard, with everyone's eyes staring and waiting to see how I would respond to his challenge, I silently walked to my desk and sat down.

He thought he'd won.

Now let me stop this story here.

I don't have to tell you that this boss was as wrong as two left shoes for the things he said to me and for his habit of antagonizing and berating his employees. I had accepted his mistreatment for far too long. And in that moment, a light switched on, and I decided that enough was enough.

I went in the bathroom. I cried. I talked to the Creator and asked him to show me what to do. I wanted to leave that very second and never work for that person again.

Instead, I calmed myself down and worked through the remainder of the day. I went home that evening, had dinner and slept.

The next day, I went to work and did the payroll.

Afterwards, I politely asked the boss if I could speak with him privately.

Then I politely told him that I had made my choice. I was leaving and I would not be coming back.

As the bully of a boss watched in disbelief, I calmly gathered my things, walked out the front door and into the thick heat of the June morning. I put one foot in front of the other and never looked back.

My mortgage, utility bills, and other cost of living expenses were breathing down my neck, but I heard the call to leave that job behind in favor of bigger and brighter things. So I silenced my fears and listened to that call.

The boss called me four days later, asking me to return to work. He tried to persuade me by saying that he would be willing to pay me for the week I had been out after my resignation, saying that we would just consider it my week of paid vacation. He also agreed to pay me a $.75 cent increase (but he agreed reluctantly, and only after making me promise not to tell any of my co-workers about the raise).

It was during this conversation that I realized that there was nothing to go back for. I had outgrown the job and had no desire to go back to work for him.

So once again, I told him that my answer was "no."

No, I would never work for him again.

"But when did the miracle happen?" you're probably wondering.

It happened days afterwards.

Worried about how I would be able to pay my mortgage and other bills, I talked to the Creator in my prayer time, asking for His help. Asking for him to save me and show me what to do.

I went to my mailbox days later, and absentmindedly removed the envelopes inside. I flipped through the envelopes, reading them one at a time. Junk mail, bill, bill, junk mail...until I flipped to one particular envelope.

It was from my mortgage company.

"Now, what kind of nonsense could this be?", I wondered, as I tore open the envelope. My mortgage wasn't due for another week or so and I had no idea why the company would be contacting me.

To my amazement, I opened the envelope to find a check for nearly $1,000 inside!

Specifically, the check was for something like $989.99, but close enough!

I was speechless. I was dumbstruck. I was overcome with tears of gratitude.

Turns out the check was a refund from my escrow...and it could not have come at a more appropriate time.

Can you say miracle?

I've had other miracles happen to me as well.

Once when I was praying, I was sitting and facing a bedroom window, and murmuring the words of my prayer as I gazed at the indigo night sky. I asked for a sign to answer my question. No sooner had the words left my mouth, when I saw a falling star streak through the dark sky. I was so startled by it, and it happened so fast, that I actually blinked a few times and rubbed my eyes to be sure I had seen what my eyes thought they had seen. There were no fire works. Airplanes don't move that fast, then disappear, and it wasn't a bird.

I saw a falling star.

Another miracle is the fact that I even became a homeowner in the first place.

At the age of 22, I briefly dated a guy who owned his own home. Although our relationship fizzled, I felt inspired to become a homeowner myself after enjoying the time I spent at his place. At the time, I lived in a one-bedroom, shoe-box sized apartment that was prone to bone-chilling drafts in the winter and suffocating heat in the summer, but my mind was made up. I took a homebuying class at a local university, began saving my money, worked with several real estate agents before finally finding one I was compatible with, then finally bought my first home nine months later!

Once I had made up my mind to purchase a home, it happened...nine months later!

Another miracle, involves my father, who had been missing from my life since I was four. When, at 25, I became engaged to be married, I sadly told my mother one evening how much I would love to have my father give me away at my wedding. I had been using the internet to search for him, but my search had been fruitless. Not having seen my father for 21 years at that point, I didn't know whether he was dead or alive.

One night, my mother slid me a scrap of paper with a phone number penciled across it. She casually told me that it was his cell phone number. I eagerly dialed the number and felt my heart threatening to pound through my chest as I anxiously waited for the line to be answered.

A man's groggy voice suddenly spoke.

It was my father.

We were both in disbelief that we were talking to one another after so many years.

A month later, he came to visit my sister and I. He met my fiance; they became fast friends.

Seven months later, he walked me down the aisle on my wedding day.

These are my miracles, and I'm so thankful that I've experienced them.

How many have you had?

Outta My Way, Mountain!

"For truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you." (Matt. 17:20)

When I initially began writing this blog entry, it started out as a dumping ground for my career-search complaints. I think I had written one paragraph before I had to slow down to grab a thesaurus to find a good word that would sum up an idea I was trying to nail down. But the more I struggled to find the perfect word to describe the anxiety I was feeling about my job search, the more the wind left my sails in my mission to write that particulary commentary piece and I soon felt like the whole bundle of anxious ideas were...silly. Something inside told me to calm down. Relax. You're not the only one who's felt like this. You're putting so much pressure on yourself to find the best word to describe your anxiety about applying for a job you know isn't challenging or rewarding enough for you that you've completely lost focus on your blog entry and instead, have begun to panic at not finding the right word. Or maybe you're panicking about feeling feeling panicked. Because doesn't feeling panic mean that your faith is shaky?And isn't faith the whole point? Having the faith to live the life you want? Having the faith to do what your heart and mind and intuition tell you to do instead of following the pack and conforming to what everybody else is doing when you know it's not right for you?
Faith is such a fascinating concept. It fascinates me because it is exactly the opposite of what we learn in school. Faith is a universal law that dictates that we must BELIEVE in things we cannot see in order to be able to see them in the material world. In other words, if you want something, you have to BELIEVE that you already have it; that you've already received it, in order for it to manifest in your life. We know about the physical world. It's the environment we are conscious of that allows us to use our five senses to make decisions. We can see, hear, smell, taste and touch our way through the cognitive processes. But there is another realm that few people ever learn about that has been referred to as the metaphysical plane. This is where the Universal Laws reign. In the physical world, the one we see everyday, we are aware of physical laws like gravity and inertia; however the metaphysical realm, which consists of things that we cannot see but are no less real, is also controlled by Universal Laws such as Faith. The adjective "Universal" denotes that these laws apply throughout the universe, in both the physical and the metaphysical realms. The evidence of Universal Laws is incontrovertible in the physical world because you can always see their results. For example, the Universal Law that dictates that humans are the sum of their thoughts; or in other words, whatever you think about is what you will get more of. And the celebrated inspirational book The Secret which has swept to the top of bestseller lists and garnered praise most notably from Oprah Winfrey, focuses just on this very Universal Law: Whatevery you think about, you will get more of.
The Universal Law of Faith is particularly special to me because it's a law we encounter over and over in everyday life, and it seems so simple to follow, but we humans wrestle with it. The Universal Law of Faith is written repeatedly throughout the Bible. Two of my favorite passages on the subject are: "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" (Heb. 11:1) and "When you stand in prayer, believe that you have received that for which you ask" (Mark 11:24).
What makes the concept of faith so amazing to me is that it is the act of believing in something that you cannot see, that makes it visible and puts it in your possession. We are taught in school to believe what we see, as in: "Give it to me, then I'll believe it." But the spiritual world is guided by totally different rules, as in: "Believe it, then you'll have it."
And I struggle with this. It is such a painful process. I wish I could deprogram my brain of all the doubt and unbelief I learned from school, society, and even relatives and other well-intentioned people. But I guess that's what makes faith even more rewarding. It's not only believing in what you can't see, but believing in what you can't see when everyone around you is whispering discouragement, doubts and ridicule into your ear. When people see what you're trying to do and they shake their heads in sad disapproval because you won't "just fall in line" with the crowd. We are obviously meant to be exposed to the doubtful thinking of the material world around us because faith becomes that much more important, like the antidote that cures the illness. If you never fell ill, how could you fully appreciate good health? It follows that if you never experienced doubtful thinking, how could you fully appreciate the rewards of standing strong in faith and believing that the Creator knows exactly what you need and wants so much to give it to you...if only you ask sincerely, and if only you have Faith and Believe.

If You Listen...

I recently saw Will Smith's newest cinematic offering I Am Legend, and besides it being a special-effects-sizzling, heart-thumping adrenaline rollercoaster, it also harbors a golden thread of spirituality that raised the peach fuzz on my arms.
With sincerity shining in her eyes, a female plague survivor tries to restore the faith of Will Smith's battle-weary epidemiologist character by telling him: "If you listen, you can hear God's plan."
Any time I hear such words of wisdom, I feel a calm and a faint sadness sweep through me. Calm, because I am reminded to slow down. Sadness, when I recall how the world tricks us into believing in the hustle and bustle of man's schedule instead of in the Creator's.
I feel, sometimes, that either the world is moving too fast and I have to struggle to keep up with it, or I am moving too fast to process the world around me.
Moving too fast to listen, either way.
Listening. It's a skill I need to improve.
Sometimes it seems like I'm so eager to hear what someone has to say that I'm not actually listening to them. Not actually processing their words or all of the ideas they are encoding. We are too busy skimming, speed-reading and texting to listen. The Cliff's Notes version and the "quick and dirty" are all we have time for. Just the nuts and bolts.
Too busy to listen.
Too deafened by the rush-hour traffic, ringing cell phones, the running for buses, trains and planes, the stress of beligerent bosses, dwindling deadlines, family obligations and crushing bills.
We can't hear His plan. The plan. The only one that matters...because we are too busy listening to man's plan.
Many of us are dissatisfied with our lives. Trapped in jobs that we hate and living lonely existences. Like ghosts, we drift through time, never leaving a trace or a mark that we were ever there.
We tell time according to what comes on tv when. We mark how much fun we've had by how many drinks we've drained. And how adventurous we are by how many beds of different partners we've rolled out of.
And for some of us, maybe this is living and a meaningful way to pass the endless hours we've been given on earth. But I've always felt differently.
One day, while working at a job that I particularly despised, I had a thought:
There's gotta be more to life than just waiting to die.
Now, I'm sure I'm not the only person who's ever had this thought. But I can't say I've ever heard people talking about it in conversation. What a long, gray, bleak block of nothingness life would be if we were all here to just pass the time. Like black-and-white snow on a tv screen, with no picture or sound.
And that's when I heard an answer to my thought.
"There is more to life than just waiting to die."
The truth is that we are born, and one day we die, returning to the ashes from whence we came. But birth and death are the front and rear covers to a thick book that is supposed to be filled with the pages of stories of a life well lived. Like the saying goes: The best we can do with the time we are each given is to spend it wisely.
Most of us are born with an enormous fortune: TIME.
How will you spend yours?
If you listen, you will probably hear clues about the best way to spend yours.
When I listen, I hear that I am a writer. Sometimes, when I read a magazine or a newspaper, or when I'm watching the rolling credits after a movie, I see the word "Editor," and I feel a pang in my heart because I know I should be spending some of my fortune by working in an editorial role. I've always wanted to, yet I've done nothing about it. Other times, I'll go to one of my favorite places in the world, a bookstore, and as I walk through the endless shelves, I'll feel a deep longing to writing my own bestseller.
In this life, there is so much to learn. At the top of that list is listening.
Maybe one day we'll get it right. And when we do, maybe we'll hear a snippet of the Divine plan, or at least a word or two about the small part we play in that plan... and how to wisely invest the enormous fortune we've been given.

What would you do if you knew you could not fail?

I decided to start this blog for two reasons. First, because so much frustration is scratching at my insides that I'm afraid I might leap off the tallest building I can find if I don't get it out of my system. Second, as I shake off the shit that threatens to make my head explode and develop the negative into a positive picture (as Lauryn Hill once sang) I figure I can share my positive outcomes and optimism with you. I'm looking to perform my own brand of photosynthesis here: by placing my mind's fertile garden beneath the rays of positivity, I'll trigger a flow of energy that will allow me to draw in good thoughts, while expelling the useless, demoralizing crap that comes from people disinterested in helping me succeed. I say "disinterested" because I've begun to observe that many of these non-helpers are not plotting my downfall...they simply couldn't care less one way or the other. But don't get me wrong, I've had my share of enemies too...some wolves in sheep's clothing, others wolves in wolve's clothing.
Right now, I'm having major career growing pains...scratch that, their more like growing CONTRACTIONS! Since 2003, after I had an epiphany one day about what career I should lock my sights on, I've known I wanted to establish my own book publishing company (fiction & nonfiction). After fighting my way, tooth and nail, through nine-year shit storm of challenges, I finally received my undergraduate degree in Journalism with a Minor in Business this May. It's funny that for the nine years it took me to earn this degree, I constantly complained about how unfair it was that because I didn't have it, I was paid lower wages and treated with less esteem than those who had earned their undergraduate degrees. I also felt that not having my degree excluded me from being considered for important work projects, promotions and from applying for jobs that truly interested me. I thought that administrative assisting and office support were the jobs I was doomed to have because I lacked that degree. So imagine when after graduation, a hairy ball of anxiety suddenly began growing in my stomach as I realized that my career options appeared to be the same as they had been prior to my receiving the degree. Once I had that certificate, unsolicited job offers didn't flood in. Being able to type "college graduate" on my resume didn't result in any more calls for job interviews than I'd received when I applied for jobs without having a degree.
And so a universal truth became evident to me: The world does not pay men for what they know, but for what they DO with what they know.
After letting these words dissolve into my mind, I began to feel like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz...everything I've ever needed to succeed, I've HAD ALL ALONG!
But my procrastination seemed to make sense at times. Oh, I'll start my business after I get away from one crazy job and move on to a better one; I'll start my business after I complete my bachelor's degree, I'll start my business after I work in the publishing field for a little while; I'll start my business after I earn an MBA...
All delay tactics. I've heard one should never put off what one can do today. And I've heard that tomorrow never comes. Honestly, it seems that everytime I check off yet another goal from my to-do list, which stood in the way of me starting this business I've dreamt of for four years now, I create another to-do list item that must be done.
Today, after a particularly bleak day at the office where I'm presently working as a temporary executive assistant, I decided to stop in the bookstore before going home. I saw some inspirational magnets that really drew my attention, since I'm always on the hunt for inspirational messages. I admired many of the magnets, but one really spoke to me deep down at the bottom of my consciousness. It read:

"What would you do if you knew you could not fail?"

I knew the answer right away. I would start this business. I would create work for myself that is meaningful, satisfying and fulfilling. Work that I could be proud of. I would create a company that I'd be proud of. I would live my life unafraid and full of faith that my steps are guided by the Creator. I wouldn't worry about bills, or whether people like me enough, or if I'm in the right networking circles, or any of the other nonsense that clutters my mind so often.
What would I do if I knew I could not fail? I would live the hell out of my life. Fearlessly. Unapologetically.
I would launch this publishing company and fly on golden wings as high as my dreams and imagination will carry me.