Do you remember when you were little and all you wanted was to be a grown up? Sure, we all had our different reasons. Maybe some of you wanted to not have to eat peas or wanted to be able to stay up later. Possibly it was something more exciting like you wanted to drive a fast car or be able to go on dates. Maybe you just wanted to remove yourself from a bad family life.
Whatever the motivation, I think that everything points back to the same core reason. Without thought of responsibility or all the other struggles that being a grown up comes with naturally, I think at the core, we all wanted to be able to be taken seriously while meeting our most pressing need or desire. We want to matter and we want our needs to matter too.
It is amazing to me that today, I find myself still striving to get to that point. Obviously, it didn't come with a magical age or specific life status.
I remember my first full-time day job after leaving college. I worked with developmentally disabled adults. In this job, I was the youngest at 19 years old. I was younger than all the clients and the other employees. When I was hired, there seemed to be no hesitation from management. My assumption was that they saw a mature young woman who was entirely capable of doing the job. Boy was I WRONG! It didn't take long to learn that I was hired because I was flexible with no family, had the physical strength needed to do the job and they didn't necessarily get a huge amount of people who wanted this job.
It also didn't take long for me to see that my place was at the bottom. Regardless of what I thought or wanted, I was always at the bottom. Whether it was for a promotion or problem solving, I was bluntly told that I was too young or I just "hadn't been around long enough" to know. And to me, those things are like saying, "you aren't good enough yet."
As a young person, those things are tough to hear. Even looking back, I can honestly say that those assumptions about me were only about half true. It is hard to determine now how things would have gone if I had a chance to improve or gotten any guidance at all.
That seemed to happen a lot in the jobs I had, even up to my last one. With the exception of that first big-kid job, the issue of immaturity or age never caused me to leave a job. Believe it or not, I persevered through the entire list of hit and miss problems I had because of my age.
For me, I don't even think that age is the absolute answer to the problem. It's more of a feeling.
Growing up, I was made to never feel good enough about anything. I could do everything I was asked and it would never be enough. I could do things perfectly and it would never be done right. That wasn't just a feeling. There were actual punishments for not doing things perfectly or doing enough.
It wasn't uncommon for me to be woke up at 3 am by a belt slapping across my chest. Being drug by my hair and beaten all the way to the kitchen, I would inevitably see what spurred the anger in my dad. I had either forgotten to empty the dishwater in the sink or there would be a dirty cup on the counter. Not all that awful for a kid who was 12 and trying to do well in school while practically raising two brothers. But, it definitely set me up hang onto those ideas that I could never be good enough or be taken seriously or that I mattered at all.
As I sit here today, I am feeling much the same. Sometimes I wish nobody around me knew the issues I have. I think people look at my issues and not at me, almost the same way people look at kids.
Believe me, I don't have a super high opinion of myself. With my past business experience, I can say that I'm comfortable in a lot of areas and feel I could contribute in so many areas...especially at church.
But it seems like no matter what I try or volunteer for, the answer is always the same. Verbally or non-verbally, I get told I'm not good enough or I haven't been around long enough.
I volunteered several times to help cook meals and got turned away by being told there was enough help. I have volunteered to be on committees and rejected every time. The one time I was able to be on a committee, I had to step down because I was told I didn't know what I was doing. Well the truth was I didn't. I got put on a committee where I had no experience and it wasn't a good fit for me. I volunteer in the church office where I sit mindlessly for hours on end each week because I have nothing to do. That wouldn't be so bad if I didn't hear people complaining all the time that there was too much to do.
By the way, if you think I'm complaining about the church, I'm not. However, I am looking at my experience and wondering if all of the things that have happened are a sign that I am truly not good enough. Even as a grown-up, I can't get people to take me seriously. My issues have caused people to have a lack of respect for me and my experience.
I think the bottom line to my rant...it's difficult, if not impossible, to believe you matter to God when you don't seem to matter to God's people. And that my friends is a story that began a long time ago for me.
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