What I Got for Christmas: Fired

Dear LORD,

Thank You for today.

So. I got fired Monday, me, along with nearly everyone else on my contract, and not only me, and my fellow contractors, but also across the board: other companies working on this and other projects all were told we are done.

Mr. Sh. asked me how I feel about all this, and at that time I had no answer, but now, thinking about it, dwelling on it, I'm angry, sad, and bitter. Just before Christmas is when this company lets go of all these people? Advent is supposed to be the time of preparing for Your coming, not for updating my resume and looking for a contract and negotiating a price. Don't these decision-makers realize the damage they have done to not just "contractors" but to families? And on Christmas?

Yeah: angry, sad, and bitter.

But.

Either You are LORD of all, or You are not.

And either I accept this, and accept that You are, or I do not.

Come, LORD, into my resentful heart, and heal it.

I ask this in the Name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen

My Heart for People

יח  כִּי בְּרֹב חָכְמָה, רָב-כָּעַס; וְיוֹסִיף דַּעַת, יוֹסִיף מַכְאוֹב.

18 For in much wisdom is much vexation; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. 

— Ecclesiastes 1:18 

Dear LORD,

Thank You for today. Just a few more short weeks until Christ Mass. Really, the days are flying and Advent will be over before it's even started to take root in my heart. Not Your fault; it's mine. Convert my rootless heart, LORD. Lift my concerns above myself and how I look to others and let me look upon Thy Precious Face, and not die, but live, abiding in Thee. Help me to help others. Let me not be a troublesome pain and disappointment ot others, but a guide and a help. Open my closed heart so that others may see me for what I am, unworthy, unwilling, selfish and spiteful, but in all that, a person who wants to do good and want sot avoid the bad.

Work has been hard: issues in the code create more issues, and it feels like I'm not making progress; it feels like I'm making regress. And all the while I have tow other developers waiting on my work completion so they can get started with theirs. Annoying and frustrating for them and for me, for me: that they don't start with the interfaces I've provided, but the lesson for me is that not everyone is like me nor does what I want them to do, and they are good, beautiful and perfect in Your Eyes.

So, that's work, but that's just work, no more, no less than my vocation while here and alive on this Earth.

Then, but now, there is choir. Thank You for making me a help there. Thank You for the gratitude of the men and of the choir director. And I hate it. I hate that I'm liked by the older people and mistrusted by the younger people. 

Or is that just my snap judgment? 

At work and at choir, I have to be with people I don't know nor love, and I have to function, and do the best I can, regardless of their thoughts and feelings, and regardless of mine. This Christ Mass, this Liturgical New Year, turn my thoughts and feelings to You, so that I may know good, and do good.

I ask this in the Name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen.