For years, I could not eat subway sandwiches.
The mere whiff of that characteristic bready smell made me retch.
It was what I always ate in the middle of the night on those legendary 31-hour night calls.
The littlest waft of it always sent me back into that fluorescent-lit hospital pantry at 2am that night, my head dizzy with hunger and my hands shivering with fear, stuffing my face with a soggy, half-fermented egg mayo sandwich as my registrar boomed, “Stupid, lazy house officer’s slacking off when we need her!”
If I walked into the path of his booming voice, I knew the feeble scaffolding barely holding me together on 90-hour work weeks would disintegrate. I wharfed the sandwich in one cobraic swallow.
The world beeped, buzzed and churned around me in hospital-lit glory, demanding more, more of me, while he unleashed his fury- “You dangerous, good-for-nothing! You’re pathetic!”
As I stuffed my last mouthful, I ate in the poison of those words. For years, I breathed and believed it. It became a part of me.
Like me, have you been shamed at work before? Even when you’ve tried your best, even when you’ve given it all you’ve got?
Three nights ago, I awoke from a peculiar dream- a chair from that surgical department was in my ex-inner healing counselor’s house. At once, I knew God was speaking, that for once and for all, He would make my inner healing complete.
If you’ve been hurt by shame, humiliation or terror at work before, know that God’s grace is deeper than the ocean. He can hold yr hurts, cradle yr pain.
If you’ve ever believed a lie, that you’re not good enough, not smart enough, not perfect enough, know you’re not reading this by accident.
Quit wanting to be the person you think you’re supposed to be and believe who He’s already made you to become. Because God uses all our valleys for a reason. Give Him all yr shame, all yr hurts.
He is able. ❤️
Today, I eat Subway sandwiches like any other normal person. 🥖I know God can set you free, too.