I am definitely not a bitter person. I truly and wholeheartedly believe that everything happens for a reason, but it doesn't mean that life forgets about you.
I've had so many odd jobs in my lifetime that I cannot even count the times people had done me wrong. Once I worked at a hotel that underpaid me and overworked me, leaving me with the impression that garbage had more worth than me. I endured and had to fight back for every little right that I had, but I had to leave. And after I left, so did all the good workers who knew their worth early. Shortly after that, the hotel filed bankruptcy 2x in less than one year. The one location I was a part of, did not know how to handle matters. So I heard.
I remember working for a restaurant as a college student and having to quit after 7 days, because I was being mistreated. The job I really wanted wasn’t given to me, because “I didn’t have enough experience.” However, the young lady who knew NO English was hired (obviously since she was from their specific Middle Eastern country). For every time I picked up a dirty plate, I would look at the overly decked-out manager and say, “I hope God never forgives you.” Years later, I walk into a Middle Eastern grocery store and there she was: Haggard, disheveled, and shy and inquiring about jobs. I left and as I shook my head, I felt my stomach twist in anger for some odd reason. After all, it had been years since I even thought about her, but I wasn’t sure why I got so mad, even after seeing her at her worse. Although that was the very last time I ever saw her again.
Even into my post-college years, I still gave chance another chance. I spent so much money on airline tickets and hotels for job interviews and career workshops. One interview was at a local TV station in a New York suburb, less than 45 minutes away from Buffalo. I liked them, they liked me…yet nothing made sense. I talked to the couple who owned the small station and they said they’d get back to me. After my professional and tasteful follow-ups, they never did. Two years later, I read an online news article that went something like this: “Tragedy at local TV station.” It turned out that the same man I talked to, beheaded his wife at the station for filing for divorce. The same night I read that news, I thanked God that I never got that job.
And as I fast-forward time even more, I obviously recall the afternoon I had the chance to sit in front-row on one of Oprah Winfrey’s last shows in Chicago. I met her and talked to her and said, “Oprah, I’d love to be a part of OWN…I even applied over a week ago, way before I even knew I was coming today.” She didn’t care much for me. Apparently, America doesn’t either.
Who am I to say that every one of my prayers got answered? I’m not even saying that the people who didn’t care for me and/or didn’t treat me well even remember me in their time of weakness. However, isn’t it interesting how at some point in time in your life, you are bound to go back to the same point you started from? You are bound to see the person who hurt you, you are bound to hear about your heartbreaker’s torment and you are bound to know that all of that had to happen.
Even if the entire world decided not to believe, I prefer to be the last and only person to declare that “There is a God and He is Good.” I do not believe that in the midst of my experiences, that there wasn’t divine intervention involved. There was more than that…things that I may never know about. And isn’t it interesting.
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