GPS Fail

This past summer my family and I were driving through Germany. We were extremely grateful for the English speaking GPS that came with the vehicle. She was a bit bossy but since we were in a foreign country we let her have her way. :) During one trip we followed her directions precisely. Precisely to a dead end. The road ran out, literally! Huh. So that's what those signs must have meant a half mile back...*grin* We turned around and made our way back to the road we knew was the right one. She told us to stop as soon as we could and turn around. We did, just once, thinking she had re-routed and was sending us a different way. Nope. We arrived back at that dead end. Driving down the wrong road, which honestly was more of a dirt path, we all had the feeling it was wrong but she kept telling us to keep on so we did. Turns out we were right and she was wrong. She didn't know what we had discovered, there were signs telling us what she could not. So we had to take matters into our own hands - in Germany where we couldn't find English speaking people. So we decided to get back on the main road and force our GPS to re-route. She didn't like it. She kept telling us to stop and turn around. We kept telling her no. We were lost and had to find ourselves, the GPS could either help us out or stay quiet.

A few years ago I made a job change. I was at a place I loved, a place that I fit in with, doing work that was fun. I was under-utilized but otherwise it was one of the best places I had found myself in in a very long time. But I had to make a change for my family. So I went looking. And something came up, so quickly and unexpectedly that it felt a little whirlwind-ish. It was, I still believe, an answer to many people's prayers. I made the move reluctantly but with determination. On my third day at my new place of employment, my former workplace called and offered me what I needed for my family. Conundrum. My internal GPS of this new workplace was telling me I was headed for a dead end but I had made a commitment. I had given my former workplace some opportunities and none of them had worked out until now. So even though I had the expectation of a dead end, I had the hope of a different outcome. I had to, painfully, turn down my former workplace and stay at the new place. It still hurts my heart to think about it. 

For a couple of years the hope of a better outcome than I expected at this place of employment was stronger than the knowledge that this wasn't going to end well. But then things started to change. Signs started appearing along the road. The reality of who I was became too much for certain people within the organization. They liked the idea of me. When interviewed they liked that I practiced biblical conflict resolution, that I was a lay counselor and so therefore a safe person to talk to, that I was interested in the morale of a workplace, and other things. But two years in and they figured out that the idea of me was also reality and they didn't like the reality. Biblical conflict resolution is uncomfortable and it made some people very squirmy. Having someone in the office that was a lay counselor and safe place became a threat to some of the more insecure people. My ways of encouragement and morale boosting seemed immature to one and threatened a small handful of others. 

For the last two years of my time at this organization I was called a gossip, I was named by name to new employees as someone that wasn't trustworthy, I was isolated from the majority of the office by being a person nobody was allowed to speak to or be seen with, when conflict came up I became the target of it, and I was told that I was no longer allowed to do any sort of encouraging or morale boosting with the employees. One of the org's core values is Hebrews 10:24 but I was specifically told that I was not allowed to live that value out in the office. If you know me then you know already what happened. I got lost. This org was giving me bad, and wrong, directions and I was headed for a dead end in the middle of nowhere where nobody else was speaking my language. My gut knew it, but for several reasons I continued following the directions. There's always the spark of hope that things will right themselves and turn around. 

A few years ago I was following Google maps to a destination I had plugged into the GPS. And I followed Google's directions but all the while with the feeling that something didn't seem quite right. I was in the right area and even on some of the right roads but the directions to turn left or right felt wrong. My gut instinct, even though I didn't know where this place was exactly, was telling me Google was wrong and I was more right. And when I reached the destination, according to Google, I was on a dark street in some part of my city I didn't even know existed. I was definitely not in the right place. My gut knew it but I followed Google anyway. I was lost and needing to figure out how to get to a familiar place. I made a call to a friend, "Help! Find me!"

If you drive around lost for too long you run the risk of depleting your energy supply. In a vehicle's case that would be fuel. In a heart's case that would be life. The longer I drove on the road this org had me on, the weaker I became. I gained A LOT of weight. A LOT. I quit taking care of myself externally - i.e. I quit wearing any makeup, I quit fixing my hair, I quit dressing the way I knew I should be for the position I was in. I forgot how to search out sugar to make lemonade.  I forgot how to be and do a lot of things. It was all there inside me still, but every time I tried to express it I was reprimanded. I became fearful of people again. ICK. I was losing all the ground I had gained in the years prior. I hated the way I was feeling. I hated that the people who had met me during my time at this org didn't know who I really was, they only knew the version of me that was trying to survive this dead end road I was on. (They were the ones who made a choice to defy the "suggestion" that they not interact with me at all.) I made a comment to a newer friend one day that I hated she didn't really know me. She replied back, "Beth, I see you. I do." I cried. I didn't see how anyone could see who I really was with all this toxic sludge covering me up. A three in my life kept making observations that I had gone missing, she wasn't wrong. I was missing. All the life-giving parts of me had been suppressed despite the struggle to keep them alive. Driving on the roads of this org had sucked the life out of me. I was depleted, I was MIA in my own life.  

But I had made a promise. My GPS at the organization, in other words - my boss, asked me to make a promise to stay on the road the org had built and after discussions with some important people I made the promise, even though I had put my blinker on and was ready to exit. Conundrum. It felt like the third day at this new place when the former called and offered me what I wanted and needed. It was painful to make the promise but it wasn't just about me, I had a family I needed to consider as well. Making that promise was the exit sign that I drove right on by. Yet as I drove by it, I knew the dead end was up ahead and the person acting as my GPS didn’t know the signs were there so he just told me to keep moving forward. So I kept moving forward, the signs increasing but the GPS insisting he was leading me the right way. I was hoping to get back to a main road and go it on my own but the dead end was getting closer and closer. And then we arrived. I had fulfilled my part of the promise to the GPS, but the GPS let me down. He didn’t listen to me when I told him about the signs. The choice to re-route was available. The GPS could have re-routed but he didn’t. He insisted I keep going along the roads the org had made. The roads of this organization are cracked, there are deep potholes littering it, the speed bumps are not rounded but pointed at the top and cars get hung up there, the repair jobs are very temporary – the decay and the damage reappearing almost as quickly as the repair attempt happens. These are not safe roads to travel. And those who do travel them feel the damage quickly. In the end it’s a very costly trip to take and the only place it ends up is a dead end.

So here I am, lost and needing to figure out how to get to a familiar place. I’ve made some calls to some friends, "Help! Find me!" but just like in Germany this past summer, I’ve got to find myself as well. I can’t rely on others to get me back to the main road, I’ve got to make my way there with friends holding the right signs along the way.