Injustice...

We're physically sick. The "attack" has finally disabled our very bodies. Bouts of stomach flu and chest colds tell the story of a germ that has hedged us in so completely that we are succombing to it: the germ of injustice. For a while, you can withstand it, ignore the symptoms, try to combat it with traditional remedies. Eventually, with continued exposure, it proves the victor over all types of health.

Exposure 1: Scott was downsized from his job but the company "forgot" to tell him, so he worked an extra week without compensation.

Exposure 2: His job change affected our cell phone usage, so we changed phone plans, but the company "lost the record" of this nerw arrangement and turned off our phone, even though we followed the agreement with the company to the very letter.

Exposure 3: When we moved due to the job change, I heard my husband call the various utilities to have us removed as the paying occupant for water, electricity, etc. at the former address. Even though this was done in November, and we moved and stopped "receiving service" before Thanksgiving, we are still being billed, with the January bill the latest to arrive.

Exposure 4: The regular land line phone "lost" our last payment, which should have actually given us a credit, and so they disconnected the phone. Fortunately, the bank got involved in this one as the phone company had cashed the check we sent. Mysteriously, the phone company "found" the payment and reimbursed us the "extra" we paid to get it turned back on...although they couldn't give my husband back the hours he spent on the phone with them trying to get it sorted out. (One phone company employee even hung up on him when he contested her comment that "You do owe the money and we're not going to turn the phone back on until you pay it!"--which was completely false. No apologies were forthcoming for either the rudeness nor the interruption of service nor for the inconvenience of our having to "justify" ourselves unnecessarily.)

Exposure 5: While Scott was unemployed and under-employed, his mom picked up our car payment. The first month, the bank misunderstood what the money was for and did not credit it to out bill. This got worked out, as best we understood. She paid a few more months payments, but apparently the bank still did not "get it." We are being told we are three payments behind and if we don't catch it up in 15 days, they will repossess the van. We're currently investigating this one, and hoping to have it ironed out before they take away my ride to work.

Exposure 6: My ex-husband is trying to get out of paying child support due to the fact that our son is finishing high school class work in March. Rather than continuing to pay for his living expenses through our son's leave-taking for college, my ex is claiming our boy can work full-time and so doesn't need his expenses paid. It doesn't strike him that he is in essence saying we should either pick up the boy's expenses completely ourselves or else charge our son rent based on his potential for having income. My ex claims he will be putting the child support into a college fund these last three or four months. His parents, however, never made him "support himself" until he was finished with a year of grad school and married to me.

Exposure 7: Scott's interim job "forgot" to credit him his commissions on his last check--costing us about $300 of anticipated income. So they paid him the commissions on the next check, but offered no extra for this late payment, even though any business that "charges" us for their service expects a late payment fee from us if we should pay them late.

Exposure 7: And for me, this was the worst one of all: at the start of the new year, I went back to full time employment in place of part time to help us with out financial woes. In so doing, I took on a math class that was being taught by someone who had never taught math and who didn't really know how to do it. They are only 1/3 of the way through the year's material, and he was giving the kids what seems to me to be inflated grades. Now as I show them what their homework and test scores earn them, they are shocked. One particular 13-year-old girl learned she was making a 58% F (she was missing a lot of homework points on assignments she didn't complete) when last quarter (before my taking the class) she was making a 98% A. She failed her state test given in the fall, so I tend to think my grade is more accurate. Nevertheless, she wrote a petitionary letter to the principal to have me removed as a teacher, claiming I can't teach and the whole class is uncomfortable with my instruction; what's more, she had other students sign it on the back, without telling them what they were signing, claiming they signed "for a good cause." All this after I'd found her a tutor, helped her rearrange her schedule to see that tutor during her study hall, and even offered her daily access to my prep time for extra help (although she only accessed this offer one time, and then only to make up a quiz she missed.) At first, her parents didn't believe she'd done this; rather they accused me of an unprofessional favoritism of other kids over their daughter. They agreed with her that I probably couldn't teach math, even though I could tally up almost 600 kids that I've taught math, and at this child's very grade level. Or I could just show them the boxful of cards and letters from kids who wrote to me about how much they appreciated me as a math teacher, and what a positive difference I made in their school lives. But even as they backed up her claim that I was not teaching the class well, they learned that the class average was actually a "B" and that maybe their daughter was not bringing home accurate information. When they saw the letter she wrote and learned the true class stats, they fell silent. I didn't receive an apology, an explanation, nothing. All I got was a child who suddenly started showing up for extra help. Her next test grade was a "C" which is pretty good considering she has a teacher who doesn't have a clue what she's doing. (says Scott, tongue in cheek.) I don't need this child or her class to validate my sense of aptitude, but I am sorely tired of being attacked for doing what in my eyes is the right thing.

So, I'm not whining? I'm way past whining. Why all this? All I know, is I'm tired of pleading my own case to You, God. I'm lifting up Jeremiah 50:34. What do You have to say in my defense?