Lord Have Mercy

As I mentioned before, this summer I have had the gift of working part-time. Actually, last summer, and the summer before too.

At the end of this summer, that era is over. My beloved boss is moving out of state, and I have been appointed her successor.

To fame this accurately, I must tell you that my boss is a rockstar. She has literally been a pioneer of advocacy services in domestic violence services in our state. She is smarter than almost everyone I know. She has grace and humor and the ability to know just how to make her direct reports shine. She gets an insane amount of work done, always knows what to say and do, and seems to live and breathe this work without it owning her.

In other words, I will NEVER fill her shoes. Ever.

As terrified as I am, looking over the edge of this cliff in the moment before I jump, I know that I will be glad I jumped (even if it hurts and I swallow to much water and can't breathe). I will be proud of myself for being brave enough to do it, to seize this moment in life I wasn't quite ready for, but had dreamed of taking, so I did. Even though I am oozing the off-putting cold-fear-sweat smell, in my heart I know that I FINALLY have the job I wanted.

I will fail spectacularly at some things. I will often wonder what I was thinking. I will not have enough time to garden or read.  But something in my heart is whispering, "but you will love this job." (My heart may be delusional?)

My brain is also whispering "college is very expensive". Has anyone told you, fellow parents of children who will go to college someday, that there are all these hidden costs besides the actual tuition and room and board? A week's vacation's worth more, easily. So while my agency isn't called Catholic Charities for nothing, this will involve a little more money in my paycheck.

But. I did have a job change 6 months ago that knocked the life out of me. I just got back to the point where life was moving along nicely, without causing me serious stomach pain. And here I go again, literally at the same point in time that my oldest child is going off to college.

I have had two friends separately share something with me that are interconnected and seem to be what I need in this season. The first was saying that one of his favorite things is sitting on his back porch with his cup of coffee in the morning, praying. You have to understand that this is a big Italian Jersey guy who prefaced the next statement by saying, "You know I don't do none of that contemplative stuff." He said he just prays over and over, "Lord have mercy."

Another friend and I were having a much-needed heart to heart up on the second tier of her dock at her lakehouse. I was sharing frustrations with her, and as only she can do said, "You know honey, would it help to think of that beatitude, 'Blessed are the merciful for they will receive mercy?' " Both of those stories have knit themselves into my heart, and I have found myself pondering them, using them as breath prayers myself, more heightened to the fact that not only do I need to give mercy; I desperately need to receive it.

So as I plunge into the dizzying change looming, I am aware that what I need most right now is mercy, with others, with myself.