NICE

I've been inspired by my brother-in-law's bearing of his soul on his blog to share something that God is doing in my heart. When we lived in Helena, right before we moved to Columbus, I was becoming frustrated with my job because it felt like every other week I was being taken aside by my boss to have a conversation about my attitude. There were times that I could hear the irritation in my own voice when talking with customers or co-workers, but I was working really hard and the more it she talked to me about it, that harder time I had figuring out what particular thing she was talking about. I sort of let out a sigh of relief when we moved and just put it behind me. Probably not the best thing for my spiritual development.

Almost a year into working at the pharmacy in Columbus, my boss pulled me aside to tell me what a wonderful job he thought I was doing and how much he appreciated my attitude. I can't say that I didn't think "Ha, that shows them." And I went on my merry way. Nearly 8 months later, I get the other talk, the one about being rude to my co-workers and the customers. I cried and I went into work early on my day off to ask my co-workers' forgiveness. And again I started working really hard. He gave me six weeks and had to have another talk. I was doing great with my co-workers, but still not so much with the customers. Mind you, were not talking about every customer - just the annoying ones, right? He said he'd been keeping his eye on me and that I'm really great most of the time, but the times that I'm not is really bad - either rudeness or condescension. I cried again and took a hard look.

The problem can't be my bosses - it has to be me. But why is my trying hard not good enough? I had a realization (with the help of the Holy Spirit) about the extremes of rudeness and condescension: when I try to act nice instead of rude, it comes out as condescending. The reason my trying hard isn't good enough is because I'm trying to ACT nice. Nice is a good secular word but I've decided to use it in reference to 6 out of the 9 fruits of the Spirit: love, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. What I need is the work of the Holy Spirit in my heart to change me to BE nice instead of me trying (and failing) to act nice.

I'll echo my brother-in-law by saying that I'm not looking for people to tell me that "they're" wrong and I'm right and "they" need to stop being mean to me. I can hear my family now telling me what a great person I am (ever heard the saying "love is blind"?) I do welcome prayers on my behalf and thoughts: about what God is teaching you, good passages of Scripture for this situation, etc. . . If you want to tell me that you still love me even though I'm a retched sinner, that's OK, too :) Right back at'cha.