I have had a few rough weeks at work lately. The problem is, now let me try to put this as nice as I can, I am surrounded by profanity, negative thinking, and profanity. Okay, I shouldn’t say surrounded, it doesn’t emanate from my office but from the one next to me. It really got to me last Friday and after I calmed down, I had a revelation.

Maybe revelation isn’t the right word but my eyes were opened. As little as three or four years ago that kind of stuff wouldn’t have bothered me. I may have even joined in. I could cuss with the best of them. And spread gossip? Well, let me tell you about…

But over the last three years or so I have noticed it bothers me more and more. Funny, this is just about the same time as I started going to Mass every week. I can trace it even further back, to when I first started reading Scripture and relearning (relearning isn’t really correct since I never learned a whole lot the first time) my faith. It is really bothering me.

At first, I thought I might be able to make a difference, maybe change the culture a little, but now I am not so sure. I know I won’t if I keep losing my temper and lowering myself to the same level as those around me. I need to just shut it out, say a prayer and move on with my day.

I have always subscribed to the theory that there are three things you can do when you are in a place where you aren’t happy because of the way things are.

• You can accept them.
• You can try to change them.
• You can seek other job opportunities.

This puts me between a rock and a hard place. I can’t change them,, I can’t accept them and I really don’t have any place to go. I like my job, I like where I work, I love the clients, I just don’t like what goes on around me with the people who should know better. Needless to say, (I guess if something is needless to say I don’t really need to say it) I have been doing a lot of talking with Jesus lately. There was a time when I wouldn’t have done that. Now I do and I also know that He is there with me, He will guide me, He will watch over me, and with Him at my back, I can handle anything. It wasn’t like that four or five years ago.

Funny how things change when you put your trust in the Lord.