Difficult people are a blessing from God...

Yesterday I took a training class on how to deal with difficult people. The instructor provided us with key tools to use whenever we encountered such people.  The thing that I struggled with the most was remembering to use the tips in the heat of the moment. I had several encounters today where I could have utilized my newly acquired skills.  My first thought was to just breathe, but I was so distracted by the special individual in front of me that all of my training went out the window.  After regrouping I pulled out my training manual to brush up on my skills. Before I knew it I was faced with my second difficult person of the day. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and thought back to my training. The encounters continued as the day went by.  I found myself silently praying to God, “Is it me Lord? It’s got to be me…”  I thought back over my life and how many times I’ve stumbled upon hard-to-get-along-with people. I even made a list just to see how far back I could go. There was the teacher from high school, the college professor, the new boss, the even newer boss, and the boss newer than the last.

My high school teacher’s reputation preceded her. When I was in elementary I would hear the horror stories from the older kids about how difficult her assignments were or how she would fail you for simply being late for her class.  By the time I entered her classroom, I was ready for the challenge; and boy did she challenge us.  We had to write term papers, book reports, essays, and memorize Shakespeare.  Even though the teacher was stern, obsessive compulsive, and a little bit moody I walked away with an A out of her class as well as a new found respect for Shakespeare. 

The college professor was cut throat and even worse than the teacher from high school.  He taught one of the core required computer programming classes for my major. His exams were impromptu and we weren’t even allowed to use computers (go figure).  We had to hand write (I don’t miss this at all) COBOL programs (an antiquated programming language that is hardly used in the professional world these days) and he would decide if what we had written would actually work if we were to process the code through the computer system.  Long story short I aced the class not because I was super smart or loved programming, but because the professor challenged me. He was one of my favorite teachers from during my college years.

I won’t go into too much detail about the different bosses that I’ve had over the years; but what I will say is that each one of them taught me more than the one that came before.  This realization made me look at all difficult people as blessings. God had placed them in my life to teach me valuable lessons.

At times it may seem as if we encounter the same people or situations over and over and over again, however, if we don’t learn our lessons the first time God will continue to send us tests along the way until we get it just right!

Be Blessed,
Christy

“It must be done, because we must do everything that is right.” Matthew 3:15