Ending on a high note

I didn't overstress on my last day here. In fact, I don't think I stressed much at all. There were a couple of points during the day where I was upset at the way my antagonist was treating me and some of my other coworkers, but I am accepting that it has nothing to do with me. It is totally her. She has no call to be rude in the way that she has been. I let myself off the hook; I am no longer trying to figure out what I did wrong; It was her all along.

I received a lot of hugs and handshakes as the day began to end. I actually started receiving them yesterday, because not everyone was coming in today. Phone numbers, email, and even mailing addresses were exchanged. It can't get much more validating than having so many people personally seek me out and ask to stay in touch. One lady even gave me her family's secret recipe for a favorite dish.

I will never tell a soul.

It's amazing what a difference two weeks make. If I had left as scheduled when I was supposed to, this would have been a catastrophe. My acting manager would have had to come in and try to pick up from where I left off. Undoubtedly, and this is not a strike against him, it would have gotten worse if he had tried to do so. But instead, I was able to give my manager a tour of the facility and its operations today and show him how well things were going. In fact, today was the best day we have ever run. People clapped at the ring of the closing bell when they saw how much we had accomplished.

Peace. Satisfaction. And again, peace, especially of mind. Don't get me wrong, things are still pretty bad out here. We will be scrambling and busting our butts for months to come. But I can leave here knowing that I have brought order to chaos in the area of my responsibility, and I have left things significantly better than they were before I came.

*******

If this had just been about work, I don't think I would really care. What makes this so different is that I was able to touch lives. I lived a good testimony. I preached the gospel (to some extent) with my actions. Praise God for that. The difficulty and sacrifice was well worth it. Praise God.

Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung my flaming tongues above