What They Meant as a Setback

What They Meant as a Setback, God Meant as a Setup

By Coach PBJ

There is a particular kind of pain that comes with being overlooked.

Not the loud kind of pain. Not the kind that announces itself and demands to be seen.

The quiet kind.

The kind you tuck into your briefcase at the end of the day, carry it to your car, and hold it together just long enough to get home.

I know that kind well.

I had been passed over for a promotion four times.

Four times I watched my supervisor select someone from outside the agency. Four times I sat across from a decision that made no sense to anyone who knew my work. And four times I was handed the same quiet assignment.

Train the new person.

The one they just chose over me.

I did it every time. With a smile. With professionalism. With every ounce of grace I could pull together.

Until one afternoon a coworker came into my office and closed the door behind her.

She looked at me and said, Paula, I don't see how you do it.

I said, do what?

She said, train the people they keep choosing over you.

I sat with that for a moment.

And then I said something I meant with everything in me.

What was for me cannot bypass me. God must be working behind the scenes.

That was the posture I held on the outside.

But I want to tell you what was happening on the inside.

What Robert Heard

I leaned on my late husband, Robert.

And every evening when I walked through that door, everything I had held together at work came out.

The frustration. The confusion. The quiet grief of watching people I had trained walk into opportunities that should have been mine. The part of me that kept asking why. The part that smiled all day and then sat in her car in the driveway for a few extra minutes before going inside because she needed just a little more time to put herself back together.

Robert heard all of it.

He never minimized what I was feeling. He never told me it was not that serious or that I should just move on.

But he also never let me stay in that place.

He was my master cheerleader. No matter how many times I was passed over, he encouraged me. He motivated me. He reminded me of who I was when everything around me was trying to make me forget.

And because of him I could walk back in those doors the next morning and face those giants again.

Robert did not live to see everything God was building in me through those years. But the foundation he helped me stand on is still holding me up today.

Three O'Clock in the Morning

One night I brought home a problem nobody else could solve.

A position had crossed my supervisor's desk that the seasoned classifiers had looked at and walked away from. Nobody could figure out how to justify it. She gave it to me and said see what you can come up with.

I took it home.

I read through everything that had already been tried.

And then I stopped trying to figure it out on my own.

I said, God. All things are possible with you.

At three o'clock in the morning He gave me the strategy.

I went in the next morning and implemented it. When I submitted my work my supervisor and the senior classifier came into my office together and asked, how did you come up with that?

I smiled and said, “I prayed.”

From that point on any problem nobody else could solve came to me.

What the Wait Was Actually Worth

I finally got that promotion.

And when I did, I learned something that shifted everything.

Because of the years that had passed, because of the movement in steps and grades in the in-between, the salary I received was higher than it would have been had they promoted me the first time I was eligible.

Four years of being passed over had positioned me to earn more than I ever would have had they given me what I wanted when I wanted it.

What looked like a setback was actually a setup.

Not just for the promotion. But for the woman I became while I was waiting. The problems I learned to solve. The resilience I grew in the in-between. The unshakeable knowing that what was for me could not be taken from me no matter who held the pen.

God was not withholding from me.

He was preparing me for a version of what I was asking for that was bigger than what I had originally imagined.

For the Woman Being Overlooked Right Now

I want to speak directly to you.

If you are doing everything right and still getting passed over, if you are training the people they keep choosing over you, if you are going home and holding it together just long enough to fall apart in private, I need you to hear this.

What was for you cannot bypass you.

Be impeccable with your word. Speak life over yourself even when the environment around you is speaking something different. What you say about yourself in the in-between matters more than what they say about you.

Do not take it personally. Their inability to see your value is not evidence that your value does not exist.

Do not make assumptions. You do not know what God is building in your in-between.

Keep being the best version of yourself. Not for them. For the woman you are becoming in the process.

And wait.

They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.

Affirm who you are. Affirm what you want. And trust God to perform it.

Because what they meant as a setback, He meant as a setup.

And the setup is always better than what you were originally reaching for.

If you are in a season of being overlooked and you are ready to do the deeper work of understanding who you are and what you are carrying through it, I would love to walk with you. Book a free Shadow Discovery Call and let's talk about what God is building in your in-between.

Coach PBJ is a shadow work coach, speaker, and founder of the SHIFT Signature Program. She helps women step out of survival and into purpose. Learn more at coachpbjspeaks.com

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