It's Not About Me

There are forces working in my life right now that are pushing me in directions and forcing decisions that I would never have taken or made on my own. I do not understand why or where they are leading me, but I do know one thing.

It's not about me.

This is a phrase that has come up over and over and over in my life in the last 6 months, becoming apparent one day as I whined and grumbled about my current employment situation.

You see in the last year...just over a year, I have had huge changes in my life. Not ones that I would have chosen. I'm not that comfortable with change. I kind of like rolling with the familiar, lived- in feeling. But none-the-less, changes have happened.

Change No.1
My job. A job that I loved. A job that I lived. A job that consumed me. Now, It is MY fault
that my job consumed me. I found my identity in my job. I was Kimberly OF the Craftmsman. I lived and breathed and loved my job. I also complained and griped and stressed over my job.
It was a good marriage that I allowed to go bad. Although I didn't realize it until I lost my job. Not just my job, but my "home". I couldn't even go back for visitation.

Change No.2
My home. Not really a home. A residence. A place that I despised. A place that litterally made me sick. A place that I was so comfortable in yet afraid of that I don't know if I would have ever left if not made to leave.

There have been other changes in my life. Realizations and attitudes and newfound respects.
AND I keep getting the message that it is not about me.

I went to work the Monday after Delano Bay Youth Worker's retreat. Now I had a bit of a paradigm shift in the way I look at things when I was at Delano. You know, where the ground you were standing on seems to shift and you look down to find that you are standing on the same ground, but wholly different? Like you are seeing it for the first time? That's where I was.
Well my co-workers are aware that I am a Christian, but most make a wide berth for me to pass by. But on this particular day, I had not one but two conversations about Christ. A request for prayer and a question about the curtain of the temple being torn in two upon the death of Jesus on the Cross! I was on cloud nine. It was awesome and awe-inspiring to think that God was using ME. ME, of all people, to minister to those around me.

It wasn't too long after that when I lost sight of the morning's conversations. I had messed up on some paperwork, filed some things wrong, and I was complaining. Not just random complaining, but I was directing this to my Father.
"God, why am I here? I'm no good at this job. I can't do the things they want me to do. I told you I would take the first job to come to ME because I knew that it would be from you. But I'm no good, there is no advancement, I don't get any sick leave....." you get the picture.
What happened next has lead me on my 6 month venture. I heard, not in my head, but a voice as loud and clear as if there was a person standing in front of my desk....

" Kim, it's not ABOUT you".

Wha? I was startled, to say the least. It took a minute to sink in that there really was no one standing in front of me or beside me or behind me. It took me a minute to realize just WHO had said this to me.

It's not about you. What do you mean it's not about ME? Over and over in the 6 months since I have had the Spirit move about me, I have heard or seen or had this little flash of "Kim, it's not ABOUT you". Sometimes I am on a "Kim" roll where I am spouting and popping off about something and I get the Not about you flash. MAN it can be irritating.

But what I have come to realize through all of this is that it is not about me... so that it CAN be about me. I have been stripped of all the things that I held tightly. Security blankets. Physical things. I have been serving the Kingdom of God here on earth in little itty bitty ways. I have been doing what I feel that my Heavenly Father is leading me to do...for HIM. So that through serving and following Christ, through humbleness and humility, I can have a better, healthier and deeper relationship with HIM.

I still don't know where I am going. I still don't know what lays down the road. But what I DO know is that He is active and present in my life. And,

It's not ABOUT me.

It's about HIM.