I'm Glad He Thought I Needed to Know

The older I've gotten, the less I ask 'Why?'
I just haven't needed to know the answers to a lot of things because my life's motto has become 'it is what it is.'  And knowing the 'why' won't change anything in the present.
Si, I've quit asking 'why?'
Three years ago, I was fired from my job; the one and only time I have ever been fired from a job.
And it was life changing for me. I haven't talked about it much, if at all.  It was painful, embarrassing and such a terrible experience that, at the time, I made the decision to never talk about it.  It wasn't going to help to explain it to anyone, or try to make it different than what it was, so I remained silent.  I did tell Del, my kids, and a nephew and his wife SOME of the story at one time, but held so much back and didn't give the full picture and found, that honestly? it was too burdensome to share.  It finally just became a bad memory.
There was family involved.  There were co-workers involved and there was Dr. Henao, my doctor at the time, involved.  Only two co-workers and Dr. Henao remained in my life after that.  The others, I put in their appropriate place, which was ' in my past'.  Those still in my life, tried to find out details and tell what they knew, but I remained silent, only to listen to what I found to be mounds and mounds of untruths told, bad feelings expressed and the leaving of many many more employee's from the company.  I had ended up the beginning of a spiraling collapse of part of this company and the eventual loss of what had been known as the Frisco office.
That was three years ago.  There have been some moments when I have thought it would be nice to know 'why' the Lord had allowed certain things to happen - people to be hurt, lives to have been changed.  But I didn't ask, allowing it to fester in me.  I became very withdrawn, turned inwards and took it as a time to think mostly of myself.  I started to lose weight.  I focused on eating right and exercising to be physically more confident, but all for the wrong reasons.  It was a rough time, to say the least.
But even then, I still never asked why, because a lot of answers were coming as I eventually turned things around, became re-focused with my husband and children and the life I knew I needed and wanted to live with them.  I took the time of being unemployed to become a wife again; a mother again and trying to live closer to my Heavenly Father; of which I don't think ANY of that would have happened had I NOT been JOLTED into unemployment and a new world that caused me to re-focus.  I was enjoying my weight loss with a husband who was finding joy in being around a 'new and improved' wife; my kids were taking advantage of a younger and healthier mother who had the energy to actually do things with them - be a grandma and fun again.  I began to 'weed out' the excess in my life...the unnecessary - and that even included people that I had been giving too much of my energies and concerns to.  I was pretty stripped down to no frills, no glitter, no excess, no unnecessary in my life.
Now...to yesterday.
Our Bliss Ortho Office had been invited to a huge luncheon along with other ortho professionals.  I had no idea how many people would be there, but there were hundreds.  I was a little overwhelmed at first, but then realized that from my previous years in the field, I was recognizing some familiar faces of co-workers.  I feared it would be awkward as I approached a group of about 8 women, who, when they saw me, tried to cover their shocked looks with stumbling hello's and greetings. I was so calm though...actually felt peaceful.  Most of them gave me hugs, expressed approval of my weight loss, said I looked GREAT and wanted to know..'WHAT HAPPENED??'
I had the chance...handed right to me...to set the record straight...to tell MY side of the truth.  But why?  Their opinions of me didn't matter.  Them knowing what I knew wouldn't change anything - wouldn't matter.  In no time at all, I was able to assess that all of those women were just as I had left them three years earlier; stuck in a job they each disliked, gossiping, groping for excitement from somewhere other than in their own lives - some heavier, most the same - ALL unhappy in their careers - and wanting someone else to make it better for them.
I didn't have to tell them anything as Dr. Henao approached and began telling them how she had 'snatched me away from a bank and finally had her heaven sent treatment coordinator back where she belonged with her'.  I let Dr. Henao do the talking and I was so pleased that I didn't have to say a word - I didn't have to validate myself - I didn't have to 'be back' where all of them were still trying to survive.  I wasn't one of them anymore.
I know that could possibly sound terrible.  But, I have come so far in these three years that I truly am grateful that I am not 'back there', still in the life I was living three years ago.  And I don't think it would have ever happened had I not been fired.  I would have stayed there...probably for years, thinking how lucky I was to be there. 
'Who I am today' is the 'why' of three years ago.  Could it have happened another way?  Of course.  Could it have happened a BETTER way?  Of course. 
But...it is what it is.  And I'm grateful Heavenly Father allowed me to know why.  I didn't ask Him; I didn't even want to know.  But He needed me to know I am still loved - I have progressed.  I have grown.  I have changed.  I have moved on.
And life is, what it is.