Feeling unwanted. I don’t know if there is any worse feeling. I went through a divorce and remember feeling like I was a sack of trash just thrown out and discarded. My ex-husband didn’t want me anymore. It’s a horrible feeling and with it comes loneliness because you trusted someone who let you down, and you can’t begin to fathom that anyone else would feel differently about you. If you’re own husband no longer wanted you, then why would anyone want you? For me, that thought extended through my mind to include my own friends and even family. Why would they want me either if I was so worthless? I had to work through the whole grieving process as my first marriage had died. I’ve often said, I would not wish that on my own worst enemy. It is ranked as one of THE most darkest times in my life.

But there is HOPE in healing. You can heal, and working through the grieving process is healing. Through that process, I began to learn more about myself, and I learned that I WAS still worthy by God’s grace and love. In my human-ness, I tried to learn the signs of what I’d been through so as not to repeat them. Never again did I want to get caught up in a narcissistic relationship where I let someone essentially have control over me. As the years passed, I did date again and eventually remarried. I’ve been married to my husband now for over 20 years and we have two great kids. But, that unwanted feeling hit me again, multiple times, not through a romantic relationship, but through my career path.

I worked for an architectural firm and gave them 14 years of my life. I LOVED it and honestly thought I would retire from there. But… as corporations do, they often look more at their bottom-line for their own survival and some of their employees unfortunately become casualties as they merge with larger corporations and leave percentages of their workforce behind as they push onward ahead. This happened to me in 2009 right after having our 2nd child. I still miss that job I loved and once again, I found myself feeling unwanted and grieving for a job lost that I loved.

I searched for work taking on the first job offered to me at 50% of the pay I had been making. I was a “juice getter” as part of my job was to keep the owner’s small fridge stocked with milk and juice and then help in the office. This job used little of the skills I had acquired in the previous 14+ years of working. I had more to offer, but my thought process was that 50% pay was better than 0%! Yet, I never felt fully wanted at that job, as I was constantly being nit-picked by the colleague who sat beside me about EVERYTHING I did… I was never “good enough” for her. There was one small win, when I produced a photo image that the project manager chose over hers, but that only made her attitude towards me worse.

I left that job for another doing more admin-type work. I still felt I had so much more to give and offered my talents in graphic design… but that, too, “ruffled feathers” because as I was tasked with creating a new logo, I found out the new logo would replace another staff person’s original design causing him discomfort. On top of that, as I incorporated that design into business cards and stationary, I had another staff member say I was “argumentative” when I tried to hold my ground with what I was taught about design. I felt unwanted there as well.

Moving from there to the next job, I thought I’d found a “home” as I went to another engineering firm and hoped it would be similar to the one I gave 14 years to. However, upon my first week there, I realized I’d boarded “The Titanic”. That ship was going DOWN! I never stopped job-searching due to realizing that. About a year or so in, that company also merged with a larger one and took only 90% of its workforce and guess who got left behind… again?

From there all I can say is that God provided… he provided me a client for the business myself and a colleague started in 2009 as a result of the first company merger. That client paid me a monthly retainer and I did lots of digital marketing for him, building funnels, providing customer support and the like. Then life threw another curveball at us all with COVID.

Just before COVID erupted and shut the country down, I took a trip to Florida for a mastermind and found myself among like-minded individuals and felt like I finally found “my tribe”, other entrepreneurs like myself who focused on positivity, having a healthy mindset and working towards growing their businesses. I made several connections, and later found myself providing work services on a contract basis for one of them. As I worked, I grew an interest in serving in the sales department and in December 2021 I began working for this person and his growing company. The vibe was strong with this motivated group of people helping small business owners. But I missed it… I overlooked what I’d been trying to avoid… allowing someone to have such an influence over my life not for my gain, but his.

Things were good in 2022 and in 2023 I was promoted and super-excited. (Actually my previous blog post talked about “dropping a pin” as I was excited about what the future held.) I made the best money of my life ever and truly felt fulfilled helping small business owners. Things slowed in August when the pricing model changed for our service and was hiked upward by $2,000 and we began getting the “bottom of the barrel” leads from desperate business owners who couldn’t invest in our program. Sales conversions went down. Then one day in October just before a sales meeting, I got the word that myself and 5 other people were being laid off with the reasoning, “I need to save on payroll.”

While it was a HUGE SHOCK, I thought I would at least finish out the day, after all, I had appointments booked throughout, but within the hour, access to various things began to be shut off. Those I had appointments with were told “She’s had an emergency and we will need to reschedule your meeting with someone else.” (Yeah, a flat out lie, and I saw it before all access was completely terminated.)

Unexpectedly, on that day, October 18, 2023, I was thrown out like a sack of trash… again. Once again, I had trusted, and it came back to BITE me in a very harsh way. In the whole process, I was told I would NOT get the commissions I had earned that were to pay out over the next several months totaling over $7,000! It was the same for the other sales people who were laid off as well… they did not get their earned commissions either.

In that meeting I was told, “Hopefully this is not ‘goodbye’ but a ‘see ya later’,” but it was made plainly clear in the sales meeting that followed with the rest of the team, there was no plan on bringing me or any other person living outside the state of headquarters back on board. I was told a lie. Not even a month later, posts are being made to social media “we’re hiring… this is not a remote position, must be onsite”. Really? You needed to “save on payroll” and just a couple weeks later you’re hiring? Wow. So “saving on payroll” was really stealing the earned commissions of those you laid off in the coming months, hiring on new people who would earn less base pay. Some might say that is business, but it’s completely unethical.

I began doing research on the owner, and realized I SHOULD have done that well before signing on with this company. I had known about his previous company that he sold, but I had not done the research on that to read all the reviews and learn how bad the business practices were. If I’d done that research before, I may not have ever worked for this man, but he did a very good job burying those reviews with all the publicity and ‘good stuff’ about the new company. And every employee, including myself, drank the cool-aid, believing in the vision so very naively.

I trusted. I trusted everyone there and when the ax fell, I discovered FEW of my fellow team reached out… when I reached out to one team member in particular by phone, I got an immediate phone call back from my former employer… and he was out of town! This told me the former fellow colleague immediately hung up with me and called him immediately. I’m going to guess, my former boss told the whole team NOT to speak with me as he had done with other former colleagues he’d ditched as he had done us. A team where I thought I’d found my “tribe” I discovered was not my tribe at all, they all turned away from me in a heartbeat never to be heard from again. I was yet again, thrown out like a sack of trash.

The Unwantedness is a harsh feeling… it feels like I’m not “good enough”… it feels like I’m not valued for the attributes I bring or could develop when put into an environment that builds each other up. I thought I’d found such an environment, but in hind-sight, I now feel as though I was a mere cog in the machine to develop someone else’s wealth.

I write now to work through the pain and the grief of losing a job that I loved and paid well. I work through the grief and struggle financially because in looking for work at the awkward age of 50 (no one wants to pay you what you’re worth and they don’t want to invest in you as you are closer to retirement than younger counterparts), I’m turned down a lot and took the first opportunity that presented itself even though it was less base pay. Again something is always better than 0, right?

I work through the grief of realizing I didn’t have any “real friends” there at all. Real friends don’t desert you. Real friends of your tribe are tried and true… ride or die. The fake-ness hurts a bit deeper and will leave scars. As the TobyMac song goes, ”Scars are part of living.” In the end, I must work through the grief, the bitterness and ultimately the forgiveness. Yes, forgiving those that hurt me, that gave me the scars I bear. That’s the next step. Stay tuned.

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There is so much truth here. Hard truth

Your calling is going to crush you.

If you are called to mend the brokenhearted, you are going to wrestle with a broken heart.

If you are called to heal God’s little ones, you are going to experience your own share of trauma.

If you’re called to preach and teach the gospel, you WILL be sifted for the wisdom that anoints your message.

If you are called to empower, your self-esteem will be attacked- your successes hard fought.

Your calling will come with spiritual warfare and a sifting – BOTH are necessary for your mantle to be authentic, humble and powerful.

Your crushing won’t be easy because your assignment is not easy – and you can’t minister POWERFULLY what you haven’t walked out. Read that sentence again.

When you’re feeling the weight of it coming down on you, RUN to the Father who longs to be your comfort. Let him whisper your true identity over you while resting under the shadow of his wings. Position yourself against his heartbeat. Let him renew your strength and set your eyes forward.

No olives, no oil.

No grapes, no wine.

Your oil is not cheap my friend.

—Author Unknown