The Grass is Greener on the West Bank

It's truly amazing when perspective changes.

I've been working at a private practice medical office for almost 6 months now. I started when another girl a little older than myself was working too. She told me that it wasn't a great place to work because it was so negative.

Well I had resolved to stay positive. I'm one of the most positive people I know and I can put up with a lot. I AM the customer service representative! And I rock my job.

After about 1 month I was broken. I no longer knew if I was capable of keeping my attitude up. The office seemed to have turned against me. My friend and coworker that trained me and was kind, was leaving and going to a new office...with -let's say- incentives. She was going off to be happy. At the same time I came under fire with my other coworkers and the senior doctor. Everything was happening at once.

Then I was on my own. Just me in a little canoe paddling to try and beat the current. Suddenly I was awesome and everyone praised me for it.

I was exhausted, but doing it. Sometimes having more than one hundred patients in a day, I was doing it.

Then I finally, after a month and a half, got help and was able to take a deep breath and relax. This place wasn't too bad. I had someone to laugh with now and talk with throughout the day. Not to mention that I had help! I could slow down. Go day to day instead of week by week. This was gonna be great.

For a while, I really started to settle down with it. My anxiety with having everything done slowly faded away. We just dealt with our normal hostile patients when they came in and a wishy washy doctor that wasn't always so pleasant. My other coworkers complained about working there and I occasionally joined them. No big deal, this was normal.

People complain about their jobs and bosses. There's always awful customers to deal with. This is a job not a field trip.

Today I was asked to work in another location. I've heard mysterious rumors that this place was calm and the patients were super kind. But I never thought it would be as a drastic difference as I found it to be.

First of all, it's not a building that you walk into. The office is in a hospital so it's set up like a normal doctor office. Nurse's station in the back. Bunch of empty clean rooms. And a smallish waiting area.

Well, the first person came on time instead of 30 minutes before the doctor even showed up.

Then I sensed trouble when a man came in and his insurance had changed to something we don't accept. Was he awful and rude about it? No, he was understanding and didn't pitch this huge fit like others have done in my original office. I'm sure they do pitch fits here, but my first experience shocked me.

Then another nice lady came in and gave us recipes for some crawfish soup with a lovely note attached.

And every phone I answered, no one chewed me out for not being competent or not having an appointment for them RIGHT NOW or when it's convenient for them.

No one told me I was bad at my job. No one throw a fit in the waiting area. No one didn't want to pay their copay (well at least no one throw a tantrum over it going up). Everyone was patient and kind for the most part.

And I got to do what I needed to get done. If that meant call all the people for upcoming appointments, I got to do it. if I worked here long term, I'd be able to prepare for the next day without stressing that I didn't start the day or two before.

Don't get me wrong, I know they must have issues. The nurse hovers like a micromanager. They might not always have supplies or something. I don't know.

With all that being said, I hadhad no idea the environment I am in was so bad until I was out of it. I think this applies to so many areas of our lives. From relationships to work to driving over a rickety bridge!

We tell ourselves sometimes that this is all we deserve or this is as good as it gets. But that is NOT true. I deserve respect and appreciation, whether or not it's given is a different story. I deserve to work in an environment that allows me thrive instead of shrivel.

But it's more than thinking you deserve that, because maybe we don't. This is about knowing that there's hope and things can improve!

Today was good and bad for me. I don't think I'll ever want to get out of bed for the original office again, but I'm also hopeful that there's a better job somewhere for me. One with positive energy and where people want to be at work!

I can only pray it happens sooner rather than later.

Passion and Purpose

I’ve considered myself a writer for quite a while now. I’ve managed a simple blog since probably 2010. For someone in their younger twenties, I’d say that’s a pretty good run. I may not have been the best at continuing to update it weekly, bi-weekly, or even once a month, but when I did post something it was heartfelt and real.

I’ve always been overly open and honest, at least with my blog and with the small audience I had.

And now I should continue with my honesty.

I am going to start writing every day. 500 words per day. It sounds like such a small amount, and it really is. But when writer’s block creeps in, it can be debilitating looking at the blank page and the cursor that just blinks back at me.

My writer’s block is not just unable to think of something to write, it’s the fear of something being horribly written or loving it too much and not having anyone to rejoice with me about whatever adventure I am writing about.

But now I’m moving through that to something more. I’m embracing a challenge. 500 words per day. Even if I write “500 words a day” over and over, or just ramble about my life.

I can do this. It’s small.

A month or so ago, my pastor taught on finding your purpose and passion in life. I only feel fulfilled when I write or after I finish writing. It’s a small consolation to living life sometimes, but it’s always freeing. I feel like this is something I can do to glorify the Lord because I’m doing it because it’s what He made me to do.

Soon I’ll be moving to something other than just Christian focused writing, but I don’t think that means I won’t be glorifying him. Just doing what He wants me to and what He has created me to do.

Sounds great, but also terrifying. My heart clenches just thinking about it.

I have to move past this, though. This fear of not being able to do it. This fear of not being able to commit to something beautiful. I want this to be my year of commitment.

Commitment to writing, passions, purpose.

Isaiah 43 tells me that I should forget the past because God is doing something new in my life. Something that is healthy and will grow. And to cross reference Jeremiah 17, I’m going to plant myself by the River of Life and grow. I am looking forward. And possibly rambling. But I am used to writing just to write.

Well, this is me trying to sign off but also trying to reach the goal of 500 words.

I wish there was a beautiful quote I could end with. The only thing I can really think of is something I’ve been saying since the new year started. It’s not from a book or any famous person, just me and my own musings.

Take tomorrow’s risks today.

--Maggie Mae

A New and Exciting Adventure

I have some exciting and potentially terrifying news that I would like to share with you.

My resolutions for this year are simple. Obviously there's the "lose weight" one and the "watch less TV" one, but this year there's one more that I don't know I've ever decided to do and follow through on.

I'm going to pursue writing and photography with the hopes of creating a career.

GASP! No really, I'm going to try this whole thing out. I've had people tell me since I was a child how creative I am, how well I write, and how good I am with a camera.

Now, I know that it won't come with just talent. I will have to work at it. Learn constantly about the world of cameras, writing, photography, how to build up my skills and create what will essentially be a business.

Let me be very clear right now, I have no idea what I am doing.

All I know is that I love writing, and photography might be one of the best creative outlets I've ever experienced. More than that, I know that God has given me this as a way of sanity and love and excitement and something to truly experience Him through.

I've been miserable and bored for too long and now I'm ready to celebrate.

Can I remain really honest here? I'm petrified of this new step. My history of not following through with big events/ideas is very prevalent in my mind, and more than that, I'm afraid that the blogs I love won't be consistent. Will I love each and every one that I write?

But then I hear that still, small voice saying it doesn't matter. All I need to do is follow my passions and see where I end up. I have a feeling that even if this doesn't pan into a career, it will pan into something great, full of adventures and joy.

With all that, I'll be working on the new blog and photography site over the next month. Look for it's launch at the beginning of February.

EEK! That's real. And I'm telling people about it! That means I have to follow through, right?!

Anyway, join me on this adventure and I will gladly keep you updated. Pray Isaiah 43:18-19 with me as I trudge onward in this race.
Isaiah 43:18-19
Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
19 See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.

May God get all the glory.

Much love,
Maggie Mae

Free Fall

((I wrote this blog a little over a month ago. Some things have changed but it's still relevant. I just know more now that the Lord's arms are always wrapped around me. Keep on keeping on, mes amis!))

Tonight my dad commented on how tired I seemed. He blamed it on my long day of work and I let him.

But if I'm honest, it's so much more than that. I'm so beyond exhausted.

I want to cry. I want to yell. I want to sky dive and feel the free fall.

I want to feel to the point of blacking out. I want and need the waves that are life to crash into me so hard that all of the air is knocked out of me so that I can take a deep breath in so that when I finally jump off the ledge into the water I’ll be able to swim without drowning.

Life has been so hard lately. No, not lately. It has been hard from day one. I mean, I was taken from the absolute most comfortable place in the world 24 years ago in a brutal and horrendous way (I'm talking about birth). Nothing could get to me there. I was safe and life hadn't touched me yet. Life has been nothing but uphill battles from there. From learning to walk to dealing boys, to driving and high school, to learning to “adult” and realizing it sucks.

Life keeps moving forward and it feels like I’m sprinting to catch up at every turn. Life slows down for a moment, then right before you come to a complete stop, the light turns green, and you take off quickly enough to cause whiplash to an unsuspecting passenger. It's impossible to catch up.

Now I'm an ADULT. And the hardship hasn't stopped. My first real year as an adult is over, but the only thing I’ve learned is that the free fall doesn’t ever really stop. Sometimes gravity takes hold again, but really that feeling of weightlessness that leaves you breathless and forces you to realize you have absolutely no control over anything never goes away. I mean, I've managed to move back home and start a new job so many times that once everyone finally stops asking about my new job they start asking me about my new job again. I never know what the next month will hold.

It's anxiety ridden. All of it. The new job that I'm so supposed to be obsessed with isn't what I thought it would be. It's fine. It's a job, though. I haven't felt creative in over a month.* Which is frustrating beyond all belief. And I’ve come to realize all I want to do is be a hipster wife (or just have what I consider a hipster life) where I stay at home and create amazing things all day!

The problem is that this life only exist in my imagination, where free fall doesn’t exist. There is an infinite amount of possibility my imagination, but less so than in the real world. Something you may or may not know about me, is I'm a very romantic thinker. Not in the flowers and chocolates sense, but in the sense that I like to romanticize life. I bought into the movies and the fairy tales as a child. I love to read (and write) and I love the happy endings. I love the sad endings too. But mostly, I love the in-betweens. Which is even more ironic because when you’re in free fall, you’re kind of in an in between state…..

I never considered life would be so damn painful and hard growing up. I never considered for a moment that I'd have to rely so fully on the love that God HAS shown me rather than the promises He's been making me. 

I never considered that the only real parts in the movies and books were the parts where people cried because life hurt. 

I don't know how people do this or why this feels like it was a secret, but I feel like I'm missing God in this. Like I'm just going through the motions right now. Like I’m free falling.

But even as I fall, I can see the mighty hands of God around me, but not holding me. I picture myself in the middle, turned at an odd angle like the wind is a turbulent sea that I’m being tossed about in. His calloused and strong hands remain around me, ready to catch me when my free fall is over.

When my suspended animation ends and I feel the rush of gravity again, He will gently close around me. His hands just out of my reach, but never so far to not save me, will close the gap that allows my free fall to continue.

He is near. Always near.

*Edit: since I wrote this, I've gotten a new camera and have been going out on the weekends to capture my creativity through a lens. It's been helpful.

Ten Years- Katrina Matters

Ten years ago I was a freshman in high school.

I was afraid of high school and who I would become. I wanted to be the popular girl in the movies and a jock and all the right things. But I didn't have a minute to find out who I was.

Katrina interrupted our first semester and whether it was two weeks or two months I don't remember. All I remember was driving for 8 hours what usually took my family 45 minutes to my grandmother's house, having to pee like nobody's business and wondering what was going to happen.

We never left for a storm. We always stayed. This was big. Really big.

We lost power for a little over a week and only could hear what was happening in our home town by word of mouth and hospital TV if the news was on, which it always was (we went to the hospital for AC occasionally).

I could sit here and type out how traumatic returning to a devastated city was. I could tell you how my family lost their home (not my home, but my aunt, cousnins, etc) and everything they held dear. I can tell you how my mother's grandmother's house was ON TENNESSEE ST and was wiped clean off the foundation when the levee broke.

BUT those details are only part of my story. All of those details.  Every emotion that was stirred in me broke through my own levee. For the first time in my life I began to take God seriously.

Instead of thinking I'd return to school as the popular girl or the one that played every sport or the straight A student, I'd be the one that knew her faith.

Now, this is such a huge part of my testimony because this didn't happen until a year later.

But I'm sick and tired of everyone wanting "to get over the Katrina 10 year stuff" because it is IMPORTANT. Stuff happened. People died and LIVED and moved and moved on.

This is part of our story. Katrina is part of my story. Jesus used this storm and devastation to create a new city, a new home for many, and a (excuse the extreme play on words) NEW Orleans.

Don't discount what He did in this city. Just listen to the news cast. His name is all over them. The Lord saved people and brought people together to save thousands. And while we still mourn for those lost, we celebrate their lives in true New Orleans fashion: with second lines and hope.

Somehow, through all her winds and rains, hope still shown through Katrina's dark clouds.

10 years has done so much.

Levees and Clouds- Learning About the Journey

I just got home from a laid back kind of Saturday. I’m not entirely used to Saturdays yet and don’t always know how to spend them, but today after having open-house at the daycare and meeting my kids, spending some time with my class-team (other teachers in my class), I’m feeling more confident about where God has me right now. I mean I’ve had lots of anxiety about working with the people in my class— wondering if we’ll get along and if we can move past differences and learn to communicate— but God keeps shooting me with these little peace arrows. I swear it’s like Cupid’s arrows but with peace, and just enough to make the breaths come easy and deep.

On my way home from my day out seeing friends and just walking around on a surprisingly “cool” New Orleans' day, I stopped on the levee to check out the Mississippi River. It’s still pretty high right now and there’s something about the river I always find soothing. I could seriously sit there for hours and just watch the water churn as the barges are led by tugboats down towards their ports.

As I was walking up the levee I looked up and saw this picture perfect scene! Clouds just above the manicured levee (doesn’t happen often, let’s be honest) and the sun in a comfortable position that wasn’t too high or low; you didn’t have to shade your eyes as you walked up the levee and you didn’t feel like you were baking either. So, what did I do as a young woman in the twenty-first century? I took out my phone and took a picture. Then I took my sunglasses off and used then as a filter and took another picture because Instagram’s filters aren’t cool enough for me.

I continued to walk up the levee and when I reached the top I was welcomed by a muddy smell. The river was high but not remarkably. I was actually a little disappointed. The view wasn’t horrible, except for the huge industrial plant I could see directly across from where I was.

Despite the smell and awkward view, I decided to stay because it wasn’t terribly hot. I picked a spot in what I always called "scaredy cat grass" and sat. I was suddenly targeted by gnats and other little bugs I couldn’t see and because The Muddy Mississippi isn’t so pretty up close in person, splashing along its banks, I gave up sitting after about five minutes and headed back to the car. It simply wasn’t worth it.

Here’s the thing, though, when I got in my car I decided to look at the picture from when I walked up the levee. It was beautiful. Something you might see on a calendar or a post card. Well, maybe I’m biased but I liked it. I also really like clouds and levees…haha.

And of course Jesus had something to say about the picture that I was so excited about.

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “It’s not always about the destination; it’s about the journey.” Well, yea. I feel like this post should end there, but the Lord went on!

I’m SUCH a destination person. Like, God could tell me I’m meant to do “x” or I’m called to “y” and I’ll be like, “Cool, so I’ma just chill here till something happens to make me magically appear at ‘x’ or get to ‘y’.” I’m not kidding right now. I don’t like to struggle and will avoid it at all cost, but right now I am struggling. I'm practically driving that Struggle Bus! Hope is difficult to come by and joy is sometimes-- often-- fleeting right now. I'm not "living the dream" right now, and that's where I want to get to and it's a hard road. 

But today the Lord made it so clear to me that you HAVE to look up during your journey. You HAVE to see what’s around you. You HAVE to take note, notice, explore, experience...because if not you’re just going to be staring at the ugly arrow on the ugly asphalt out of breath because you don’t work out like you should as you walk up this levee instead of noticing the grass has been cut for the first time in eighteen months and the clouds are perfect and the sky is blue and beautiful and the sun is bright but lovely and you are happy and hopeful and somehow know, really and truly KNOW deep within your soul that everything will be okay; that no matter where you are in life—becoming a teenager, quarter-life crisis, learning marriage, parenthood, non-parenthood, mid-life crisis, etc—God loves you and you are Chosen with a capital C even if you don’t entirely get what that means but you know that you are Loved with a capital L and you somehow know exactly what that means.

Look up and experience the struggle, because, my dear ones, the struggle is part of the story, and there is hope in it. Pause and breathe. Life is made up of desperate, suffering people that need each other and, more so, Jesus. We are all struggling but if some of us just would look up and pause for a moment and notice the beauty on occasion, maybe we could help each other out.

Today my destination turned out to matter very little. In fact, before this revelation I would have said it was a bust. But now, now I say it was amazing and just what I needed, which the Lord knew. He’s known it for so long, and today my stubborn self said okay and went with it.

Keep on keeping on.

--Maggie Mae

Learning to Trust God from Two Year Olds

I just started my first 9-5 job. I’m a teacher’s assistant at a daycare around the corner from my house.

Yes I like kids and I enjoy watching them learn and grow, but having sixteen in one classroom is much different than having one to four in their home nannying or babysitting.

They all come from different backgrounds, they all are disciplined differently. None of them listen well because they’re all barely three. Most are potty-trained (only because I’m coming in on the tail-end of the school year) and so far there’s been only one “accident” but it was in his swimsuit so I don’t even count that one. 

I have to be honest here, it’s been a rather overwhelming first week. Something inside me feels like it has broken, and when I say broken, I don’t mean snapped. I mean I feel broken. My heart maybe. I thought I’d go into this classroom and my old love for children’s ministry would reignite and dancing and singing and laughing would be all natural. I still love singing and dancing and arts with kids...but there's a lot more to working in a school than just that stuff. I don't get to just have fun with them. 

It’s hard. The kids, can push every single button you have, and it’s funny since I went in there with my chest poked out thinking I was Superman. They found my buttons easily.

They ignore you. You have to repeat the same things over and over to the same child over and over. When you think you’ve figured out a way to communicate with them WHY they should stop, they change tactics. It’s rough. Really rough. Being ignored sucks even when it’s by a three year old; rejection is still rejection.

And my heart breaks. The part of me that likes to run from anything hard (the part that normally wins most arguments within my head) is roaring right now, wanting to fly FAR FAR away and go back into a weird coffee shop with horrible hours because it’s what I know. But last night…last week….this past year, the Lord has been telling me to chill. Stay put. He has me here and I need to stay. STAY.

Last night I went to my church’s once-a-month worship service. For about an hour on this one Wednesday a month we get together, worship, receive prayer, and hear some good words from our pastor. Well, if you’ve ever followed my blog you already know God and I are always on some sort of rocky path. I can never seem to find the straight and narrow or maybe this is my version of it. I go months without remembering how to pray and days without even considering Him in my life. Just being really honest here, don’t go crucifying me. Jesus is Lord of my life...but I'm a stubborn toot. 

Anyway, it’s hard for me to connect with Jesus sometimes. Especially this past year; it has been nearly impossible at times. But last week at the beach I asked for Him to use me in a specific way for a specific purpose which domino’d me into longing for Him in such a profound way that I attempted prayer outside of my church community which then opened the door for His coolness last night.

I sit down and close my eyes and open my mind and heart which were flooded with anxiety and worry about this job. I can’t help but wonder if I’ve made a mistake and if I should have kept looking.

He gives me this impression of how I behave with the kids in class. I have to repeat the same things over and over to them. Sit still. Stay seated. Don’t do that. Trust me that I know best. And on and on. And my heart bursts.

I hear Him say, “Trust. I’m always telling you to trust. I’m always taking your sweet face just like you take theirs and looking you in the eyes even as you turn yours from me and saying ‘Trust me! I know!’ “

How many times has He had to tell me to trust Him? How many more times will He reiterate it? He shouldn’t have to. I shouldn’t have to at school, but I do because I care. He does it because He loves me enough to keep pressing forward.

Each step is “trust me.” Each new adventure whether it’s a job or new passion to pursue, He’s always whispering to “trust me.” And I do, for about five minutes until I think I know everything again and….back at square one just like in the classroom.

My heart is still aching and I still the faces of the little ones I’ve been correcting over and over again this week in hopes they won’t hurt themselves or someone else just like God does with me…but He has way more patience.

I don’t know why this hurts my heart so intensely, but it does! I guess it’s because I’m experiencing the smallest amount of what the Lord experiences and has experienced since the Beginning when it comes to human nature..

Free Will, y’all. It can be a real you know what...

And to think I am about to start all over again in August with different teachers. In a different classroom setting. New, YOUNGER children.

I don’t know how I’ll do it. I don’t know how God does it…how His heart does it.

All I know is this, I am so glad I’m not God.

--Maggie Mae