I know the title of this entry sounds crazy but bear with me.

Part of the Apostle Pauls story has been on my mind lately.  If you don't know the story or aren't a Christian I'll sum it up like this; there was a period when Paul was in prison and it's believed that the sewers of the city ran through the prison and Paul may have been standing in sewage up to his ankles when he said/wrote "rejoice in the Lord and again I say rejoice." On August 4th, 2011 I was told to call into a conference call and by the end of that call I was unemployed. The job was my dream job, the job I'd wanted since 1999, the job I'd prayed for on a Tuesday got called for on a Thursday and had that Friday by noon. To be honest I wasn't surprised and yes I was disappointed. I went from making a good salary for  high profile company,  in a high profile position with incredible perks, to being unemployed with no prospects in a sucky economy, AGAIN!!! But this time it was different, I was okay. While all of my (former) co-workers went into panic mode I went to the gym then the movies. Why didn't I get online and start looking for a new job immediately, because I knew I wouldn't get a new one by the end of the day, because I knew if looked online and saw nothing to apply for I'd get frustrated.

Now being unemployed and living with my mother is NOT where I thought I'd be at this point in my life but I thank God that I have a Mother who I can live with during this temporary period (and yes it's temporary) and a Father who calls to see how I'm doing if I haven't stopped by his house for a few days. I thank God I have siblings and extended family who call to check on me and last but not least friends who call, send cards, take me to lunch or BLESS me for no reason other than they want to. So even though my situation is not ideal I have no reason to complain. Are there times I want to complain, yep, but I remind myself "you have NOTHING to complain about." 

It's real easy to be "HAPPY" when you have what you want, when you can get what you want and things are going your way but you'll quickly find out how happy you are when nothing is going your way. When everything that can happen has happened and you think nothing else can and then it does and instead of telling everyone you know the hell you're going though you do something for someone else, you're on your way to being truly happy!

So when I say be Happy In Your Hell what I mean is when you feel like you're going through Hell (no matter what Hell is to you) and you can go through without kicking, screaming or complaining you're doing pretty good; if you can do something for someone else you're doing damn good! I kicked and screamed for years, the other side is much better.

I'll end this with a quote from one of my favorite books Women Food and God,  I remind myself of this everytime I get the urge to bitch or complain: “. . . hell is wanting to be somewhere different from where you are. Being one place and wanting to be somewhere else . . . . Wanting life to be different from what it is. That's also called leaving without leaving. Dying before you die. It's as if there is a part of you that so rails against being shattered by love that you shatter yourself first. (p. 44)”
― Geneen Roth, Women, Food, and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything