Pam Padgett ... teacher
Psalm 54:7 For he hath delivered me out of all trouble: and mine eye hath
seen his desire upon mine enemies.
As I read this verse today, I
recalled some events several years ago and how God not only delivered me out of
a lot of trouble, but also let me see what happened to the people who were my
enemies in all of this.
When I first moved to Colorado Springs
(mid-1980s) I started working at a bank as a secretary for one of the officers
in the Trust Department. On the first day of work, the head of the department,
Doug, came by my desk to introduce himself. He then told a joke about a strip
club. I just looked at him, not laughing at the joke which I didn't find to be
funny. The next morning first thing, he came to my desk and told me he was
either a deacon or elder at his church (I don't remember which he said). Again,
I just looked at him. Had he said or done something that showed he cared about
things of God, I would have welcomed talking with him. He walked away with a
confused look on his face, as though he didn't know what to think about me ... I
didn't laugh at his worldly joke, and wasn't impressed with his position at his
church. From then on, it was obvious that he did not like me, and multiple
times he openly lashed out at me.
We had a problem in the department
with mail (including loan payments) being mis-routed and with customer phone
calls not being answered promptly or not at all. At one point I put together a
proposal for how the secretarial work area and handling of the work might be
changed so that we could address these problems. After praying about this
proposal and how to handle it, I presented the proposal to my boss, Jim. Jim
liked the idea and thought it would work well, but said that Doug would probably
not agree to it. Sure enough, he didn't. A few weeks later, I presented
another idea to Jim but, again, Doug wouldn't agree to it and became very angry
that a secretary was suggesting changes. I made no more suggestions, and we
continued to have problems with phone calls and mail.
About this same
time, I learned that the computer expert at the bank had copied copy-righted
software to the two PCs in the department, although we had only one license. I
was not around when the software had been copied, but was now responsible for
the PCs. So I spoke with Jim about this, telling him it was my understanding
that this was illegal and that the bank could be sued for doing this. Jim was
an attorney and, after reviewing the information I had gathered about this, he
told me (with lots of legal terms) that this was not a problem. I said "OK",
wanting to believe that everything would be fine. But as I walked to my car
that evening, one by one, the points Jim had made were brought to my mind ...
followed by truth about that point. It was as if I was listening to a court
case being argued, hearing both what Jim had said and then truth from the Holy
Spirit. By the time I got to my car, all of the points Jim had made had been
dealt with. The next day, I asked to talk with Jim again, and laid out the
truth that had come forth. He then agreed that the software had been copied
illegally. We then spoke with Doug to explain why the department needed to
spend a few hundred dollars for more software licenses. Doug was quite
irritated about the whole issue, insisting that the computer expert knew what
she was doing. He called her and asked about it while Jim and I were in his
office to prove to us there was no problem. However, she reluctantly admitted
that what she had done was not legal. Software licenses for the second PC were
obtained.
While all of these things were going on, I was also dealing
with another secretary, Carol. She spoke freely about being a Christian and
about her church activities, while at the same time doing things that were not
right. One problem that surfaced more than once was dishonesty. For example,
she told me about a lie she planned to tell in order to get tags for her car at
a lowered cost. I told her she was not dealing honestly and that she needed to
deal truthfully. She became very angry with me.
There were many
problems with both Doug and Carol, but God did not allow me to be destroyed,
even when they were angry with me.
Finally, I had the opportunity to
move to a job at another company which would allow me to start doing some
computer programming. In addition to being glad for the opportunity to program,
I was also glad to no longer have to work with these people ... being delivered
from them and the trouble they were causing.
Two or three months after
leaving the bank, I received a phone call from one of the other secretaries,
Betsy. She told me that some amazing things had happened at the bank in just
the short time since I had been gone.
- Doug had been removed from his
position as head of the department. The man who replaced him implemented the
very changes suggested in one of my proposals and they were working well.
- The bank had discovered that the computer expert was embezzling money from
the bank. She had been fired.
- Carol had been caught stealing money from a
small collection that was taken up each month to buy birthday cards. She had
been fired.
It was truly amazing to me that each person I had had so
much trouble with at the bank was no longer there and that the very things that
had come out about them were the things I believed I had been led by God to deal
with. That these things that happened after I was gone were helpful to me as well,
since I was spared the turmoil caused at the bank by these events. It was also
interesting that Betsy called to tell me these things. This is the only time
she ever called me. I was reminded of this as I read the last part of Psalm
54:7 ... and mine eye hath seen his desire upon mine enemies.
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