Dear God,

if some of the lessons you wanted me to learn 

in this two year period of my life  

are that systems are essentially impervious to change,

people can be as nice as can be

yet still thwart you at every turn 

and that it hurts my head 

to keep banging it against a brick wall,

just so you know,

I had already learned those
in the first 30+ years I worked here.

Not to be ungrateful,

but

I'm still waiting for the magic key
that will get things turned around;

not just for me,

but for all our team
and the kids we serve
too.

If the main lesson to be learned now is
that I'm powerless, 

which makes me appreciate more fully
how all our kids in foster care feel -

you can cross that one off my list too!