Tis a gift to be simple

It truly is a gift to be one of those gals that doesn't need a whole lot. Why, one might ask. Well, because I've learned that the only thing you can really trust in is God.

I had a job. I was disposed of as an employee yesterday. The chick said it was because I was "too slow" and I was "costing us too much money" and "you will never do well at a job like this" but she made it very clear that those were just A reason and not THE reason. I mentioned to her that I could tell that she wasn't giving me the complete truth of the matter and I would really like to know the real reason and she got all defensive and said, "We're not talking about this anymore. End of discussion." Pretty sure she was hiding something there.... The reason I suspected that it was not what she said it was was because she was putting very unreasonable expectations on me. If she held the whole place to the same standards that she held me, she would have to fire the whole freaking place.

I got in my car and started to cry. Then I screamed. I screamed all the way back home. I couldn't talk by the time I got back. Heidi talked with me for a while which helped. I finally stopped crying about 6 hours later, but only for a short time. It started again when Linda got home and she asked how I was doing. I said, "I feel like if someone were to cut me in little pieces and throw the pieces to the wind, I would be more useful than I am right now."

I ended up going to Fire on the Prairie in spite of it. It was the last thing I really wanted to do, but I knew that if I stayed home and pouted, it wouldn't help the situation any and if I went, perhaps I'd feel better. I ended up almost falling asleep in the middle because I was exhausted from crying and I had taken some tylenol for a tear-induced splitting headache. But at the end, Diane said, "Stretch, come here."

Diane is the pastor there and a while back, she gave me the nickname "Stretch." It's so funny because she always calls me that now and people look at her funny cuz I'm MJ, not Stretch -- and she explains it and they're like, "oh."

Diane told me to start praying for people. That was really cool. I've never done that before. After the service was over, someone asked me what my plans for the summer are and I said, "I don't know anymore. I was working -- until today." He brought me to Diane and asked her to pray for a job for me and she told me that God is going to give me something even better than that job was. Yay. That's awesome.

It's been a rough couple of days. Ruthie asked me later if I had told Nate and Chad about my job. I didn't talk to Chad at all and I didn't mention it to Nate, although I think he probably figured it out. She said, "I'll let them know." It boggles my mind that they even care. Not that they're the kind of people who wouldn't care -- I'm just not used to having people notice me at all -- and let's not even talk about whether they care about my situation or not. It's kind of weird. But it's nice. On Sunday, I was talking to Ruthie about my not wanting to be around the guys and she said, "You don't hate them. You're just afraid, so you put up walls to keep yourself from being hurt. You think that you're fooling people -- but you really aren't. Everyone sees through it -- even the guys." That blew me away. They know this stuff, but they choose to like me in spite of it. It almost made me cry....

I was going to get a hair cut and buy new shoes when I got paid. Now I've decided to ask my grandma to cut my hair and postpone the shoes until I have a job again. This is sad. I mean, honestly. I've needed the shoes for like 6 months now....
~MJ