A Brighter Day

Well, work was fantastic toady. Of course, it was payday for many people this weekend and it seemed like they all came in and bought from us. Today was officially the biggest sales day that the Salisbury store has ever had. It felt like an oiled team effort too. Everyone doing something slightly different and contributing to the success of the store as a whole. The real irony is that, after todays result, if the month was 30 days instead of 28, there'd be a real chance of doing target. As it is we come up 6% short.

But, accentuate the positive etc... There's much to be thankful for, maybe I have managed to clear the air with the team and get a fresh start. But that now means that I have 5 months to achieve what I should have been aiming for in 6. Oh well, I'm still in the game to fight another round at least. I will just have to learn some new team tactics as I am going. If I cannot use the management style that I am used to I am sure that I have the skills to adapt. Right now I am just thankful to get on an even keel again.

Father, once again you have given me more than I deserve

Thankyou for helping me to find a way to get things

back into the right groove and for the little successes

every day that make life seem that much more positive.

Whilst I am sure that I am working with a team that do not believe,

Please grant us all success as a whole in what we do

Please help me to role model all that is Good and Positive about your love

In a manner that will not alienate them but will help the,

to question and find you.

In Jesus Name

Amen

I had my boss down with me for the day at work and what I thought would be a slightly tricky day turned out to be a day that totally took the wind out of my sails. I have slowly been trying to gently coax people at work to focus in a little bit on what we need to achieve in order to e able to deliver the targets that we are about to be set. It now transpires that they have been bitching about me to my boss behind my back. There is part of me that says that I do not care, I am trying to help them and they are just resisting the inevitable but the problem is that I still have 5 months left on my probation and if they continue to moan then I won't keep the position at the end of it.

So maybe the plan of action needs to be revised a little. I think for the time being I will just have to play the team player game and bide my time. When the bonuses dry up and they see a gap in their pay packets they will come and ask my how they can make up a 25% increase in targets.

I don't feel that I have been too aggressive with what I am doing but somehow I have missed the mark with it. That irritates me greatly because all I ultimately want to achieve is a successful store and a winning team. I don't want to change any of them, or what they do. I just want them to do it as much of the time as they can.

Lord, please help me to see what I am doing wrong.

Please help me to be able to talk to my team

and to be able to do whatever is necessary

for them to feel that they can approach me

rather than going over my head to my boss.

Please help me to be able to correct what I have damaged so far

and to be able to build a successful team.

More over, please give me the vision to be able to

see what I need to be and to be able to turn my back

on the conditioning from previous jobs that is holding me back at the moment.

In Jesus Name

Looking for a Church

Everything's going to be alright - atleast for now.  Work was good today, not fantastic money but enough to keep us going towards target.  More importantly it was fun and enjoyable.

Best of all when I got home I found out that I had a decent offer for my old laptop.  Having got my nice shiny new Macbook I have no need for the old PC based one anymore.  The person that bought it was local as it goes and they have already turned up and paid cash.  They seemed like a nice person and I'm glad that I was able to sell my laptop to someone that actually needed it, rather than the previous offer that had come from a faceless company that would have probably just resold it on and ripped someone off for it.

Most importantly, It means that I now have some money that I can pay into my bank account to prevent myself from going overdrawn before I finally get paid.  I'm thankful that someone is looking out for me.  I hadn't realised how much stress I was putting on myself over this but now that it is lifted it feels so much better

Father, thank you for looking after me

and guiding me on path that is right for me to follow.

Can I also ask you for some help?

I need to find a church where I belong.

Something modern and contemporary but

no too evangelical and trite.

Please help me to know where to look for my spiritual home

I will look, if you can guide me, please

In Jesus Name

Amen

Thankful

I think I can relate just a little to people who are really struggling for money right now.  With changing jobs being quite a recent thing, I haven't been paid for my new employer yet.  That comes at the end of the month but in the mean time I have used up all my savings.  DOn't get me wrong, I'm not in a BAD way financially.  But I can relate to having to decide what you buy and whether you can afford something or not.  All this month my credit card has been used for everyday living, something that I would not normally do and now I have a bill bigger than I can pay in one go.

That's no drama, I have an income to pay it with - what I am driving at is that this is the worse off I have ever been and I can begin to relate to those for whom cash is an issue.

Father,  I thank you for the blessings

That I have.

Although today may seem tough

tomorrow has a brighter light.

For those who have a darker day on the horizon,

please be with them and bring them your love

And help them to find a way through this

Somehow, as a society, we need to

find a way through this financial crisis

Please help us all to come together as one

and move forward with you in mind.

Turning our back on the excessive greed and 

looking for a society where we all look after each other

In Jesus Name

Amen

After the Rain...

Well, I didn't get any valentines cards from any secret admirers... I guess it's going to take longer for there to be an answer to that prayer.

Its interesting where God comes in though.  I was at work today and a vicar came in from one of the little churches around the city centre.  There's a few of them, mostly in little nooks and crannies, where the developers have lost the battle to tear down Churches of God and replace them with churches of consumerism.  In a way I'm surprised that the Cathedral is not a little more active than it is, leaving it to the little Churches nearby to reach out.

Anyway, it was nice to have someone from the local community coming round and thinking of the retailers in a time when things are not so good.  He was offering retailers the chance to be prayed for as a company or as people.I sort of felt a little like I was being called to his Chrch.  I think that I need to find time to go in there somehow.

Father, thank you for finding a way to talk to me,

Thank you for finding a way of offering you Love

to the retailers and people of Salisbury.

For those who need to hear you and be with you

Please give them the strength to come to you

and find strength and comfort

In Jesus Name

Amen

Don't Just Stand There... Pray Something!

The last few days have been kind of non events, wirk has been up and down business wise but pretty good in terms of atmosphere and morale. I think that its fair to say that everybody's feeling a bit tight money wise at the moment. Retailing luxury goods, albeit good quality ones for the high demographic market, is not a certain income in such times by any means.

The thing is, because it hasn't been one thing or the other, I havent really had much to pray about. Well, that's not true - there's always a reason to talk to God. If I am being more honnest, I havent felt motivated to do any talking becuase I dont have anything that I feel I need to say. That, I guess is a blessing in itself.

But I do have something I have to pray about. This is a long one and it requires some serious catharsis on my part before I pray. I have a story to tell here and I feel the need to tell it and to ask for healing to move on and get over it trully.

This story goes back 8 years ago now and its a long one. I'll try to keep it as short as I can without cutting off too much.

In my second year of uni my Mum died of lung cancer. I chose to move home for the third year so I could be arround for Dad. I'd have been happy to carry on away from home - my response to things is always to put my head down and pretend that it isn't happening! ANyway, while I was in the third year I took a job in a locla toyshop to help apy may way through uni. Working there I met a girl and instantly took a shine to her. We seemed to have an instant connection and she was the most amazing person that I have ever met - still is for that matter! We grew closer and in the end I got the guts together to tell her how I felt and that I wnated to be more than jsut friends. We started meeting up outside of work and going for walks etc. Not totally like a date but as more than normal firends. I discovered that they were quite hard to get close to but persevered. Eventually we ended up in a relationship but it was always a little difficult to get them to be emotionally close to me. I later found out why but that is not relevant to this.

I very quickly fell in love with them and eventually told them. Shortly after that we went travclling for three months and that was when things became a fully physical relationship. For me that cemented my love for them and in return they said that they loved me too. I was right on the edge of proposing to them, marriage was something that came up in conversation and I was more than ready to commit.

At the time it was in my prayers taht this would be Gods' will for us to work out like this. As I got to know them and I found out more about them I became a confidant for some seriously terrifying things that had happened to them in the past and had to deal with them self harming (I wish I had dealt with that so much better than I did!) and even a suicide attempt. Whilst I respected that as a confidant I had to keep a certain distance until I was invited further, in a way it made me love them even more, that this person had survived all this and was still so amazing. I was totally in love, head over heels. Anyway, after we got back from travelling we were good for a while and things were fantastic - or atleast so I thought. As it turns out, they were cheating on me. Worse still they were doing it with another woman.

I still find it hard to accept it as cheating, how can I compete with a woman? They can do things that I can't, love in a different way to me. Anyway, before to long, I was left for this woman and they came out as lesbian. It ripped me in two, I cried daily for weeks and suddenly I was the one who was self harming. I forgive them, in fact I think I forgave them as soon as it happened. We are still friends to this day, more like brother and sister than anything else. I would never change that now, having them in my life is worth having to deal with the pain of being constantly reminded of what could have been. The truth is that I could never tell them just how much they hirt me, just how much it still hurts.

It ended about 6 1/2 years ago and for atleast 3 years after I would not even look at another woman without feeling guilty. I've been on dates since but noone ever compares. The hurt is still very real and if I am being honnest I still love them completely. I'd drop everything if the opportunity ever arose. But it won't.

I need to be healed of this so that I can move on and find love again. I am pretty lonely on my own. I can cover it with work and by finding things to do but in all honnesty, I'd rather find someone to share life with.

So my prayer is this;

Father, at this time
I pray to be healed
I bear to you my heart on this page
And in person

I offer you this in all honnesty
and ask you to heal me of it
Please dont take away anyone close to me
But please take away the pain of the past with them

I am sorry for all the prayers
that I have offered
asking for this relationship to work
when it clearly was not your will

Please heal me of the hurt
and make me free to love without retraint

When the time is right
and I am ready to meet someone
please guide me
to find a parter

This I ask
With all my heart
In Jesus Name

Amen

NB - any comments of an anti Gay nature will be removed, anyone who wants to try to justify that approach based on Bible passages. go and re-read them with an open mind and you will realise that they do NOT condem homosexuality but condem loveless relationships, based on sex. And that can apply to any of us.

The end to a good week

Well, my store did target this week.  I am seriously relieved.  Whilst there is less pressure in my new company to do target (much less pressure!) it is still nice to have achieved it o especially at a time when retail is suffering and people are not spending.  In all honesty I think all the snow has helped us, people have felt less like going out long distances and have shopped locally and that has helped us.  Anyway, I am thankful for it.  If I manage to keep this rate going then maybe I can earn a bonus next  month.  That would be nice.  Thats the future though, right now I have to be thankful for what I have right in front of me.  Things are going well right now and God willing, they will continue to go well, but that is not something that I have a say over, I can only pray for Gods will to prevail and trust that it will be the right thing for me in the long run.  Anyway, tomorrow is a new week and I have it all to to again.

Father, thank you for the blessings that I have received,

both over the last week and over the longer term.

I pray that you can find it in your will that things

will continue to as well as they have done recently

If I am successful with what I do and I earn a bonus, 

please help me to remember that I should share my good fortune

with those who are less fortunate that I am.

But most of all, I want your will.

I do not want what is not mine to have.

I want your will, not mine

Yet in these prayers I ask that your will 

sees me through the tough times with your grace

and allows me the privilege to help others around me.

I am working tomorrow

I know that Sunday is the Sabbath

But the job that I do requires that I work it

If it is the Sabbath in my heart, and I work it

In the knowledge that I am really thinking of 

Jesus and your plans for me, is that really so wrong?

Please help me not to forget.

In Jesus Name

Amen

Just as a caviat, I'm forcing myself to use the Macbook that I have been given my work, by doing things on it I hop I can get used to it a bit more.  In reality half the keys on the keyboard are not responsive enough so half the letters don't register the first time and secondly, the edge of it is so sharp that it has given me sore wrists from leaning on the edge of it - Apple, please, please, please make your laptops curved at the edge and soften the sensors under they keyboard!  And that's that!

Looking For Love

Ok, I've been off from work for two days so there's not been too much happening really.  Its been pretty cold and snowed a bit more but it hasn't settled like on Monday and Tuesday.  Yesterday the wide of my land lord knocked on my door at about 11am having locked herself out of the house so I had to let her in and let her borrow the phone to see if she could get hold of her housekeeper for a spare key.  When she couldn't I volunteered to driver her over there to see if she could find her at home but she didn't seem to be.  That's about as much excitement as I've had over the last couple of days.

I guess in true selfish fashion, now that my work life seems to be on the up at the moment my mind is turning to the other things that I want and do not currently have.  Sure there are various frivolous consumer items on the list, I'll have to work for those - Im not about to waste Gods time praying for things that I can achieve myself in good time.  There is one thing that is on my mind at the moment though.

With valentines day on the way, I'm starting to feel a little agitated that I am still single.  I have been single for a number of years, after I got severely hurt by someone I loved with all my heart.  It took me many years to forgive them and to heal the pain that they left me.  I have been ready for a while to begin looking for someone but I never seem to move in the right circles.  After all, the sort of person that I want to meet is not the sort of person that I am likely to meed in bars and clubs, so that's out.  So where do you meet someone with a degree of class and morality who will conduct themselves according to Christian values?  It's not like they fall from trees or just turn up, walking down the street.

Father,  I thankyou for everything that you have done for me

Far more than I deserve

But the truth is that, for all that I have

I really long for someone to share it with.

Long term I want to find someone to settle down with

Get married and start a family.

What is it that I need to do?  I get the feeling that there is a reason

why you have not brought someone into my life.

I pray that you will grant me ears that will hear

and the presence of mind to comprehend what you are telling me.

Where should I look?  WHat should I do to be fit and ready?

I ask in Jesus Name

Amen

Snow!

So glad that I have some of this in the cold weather!

The view from my window this morning, there's about 4 inches out there and I've got to get to work!


Again, another photo of my garden in all its snowy lovliness.

On a serious note thoug, I have had to drive through some seriously difficult conditions over the last two days, and at a time when the road has been littered with breakdowns and accidents, the Lord has kept me safe. I now have2 days off from work so I dont have to go out in it for a while!

Father, thank you for keeping me safe over the last two days

Maybe I shouldn't have really gone out

But I couldn't let my team down

So thank you for guiding me and keeping me safe.

Please do the same for the many others

Who will set foot outside over the next few days.

Now that I have a couple fo days off, please can it sone a little more?

I really want to build a snowman becuase I haven't for years!

I know that I shouldn't ask for frivilous things but

As you can see my true desires, you'd know

That I wanted it anyway

So I may as well be open about it!

In Jesus Name

Amen