The Work We Do
“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.”
Ecclesiastes 9:10
Being a new mother and returning to the workplace has been both more rewarding and more challenging than I anticipated. In the early weeks, the relief of routine and something familiar in my turned-upside-down world while at work was restorative and full of joy. However, as the weeks turned into months and a now year, it is harder to be away from my daughter, and I regularly go home to my husband and complain that he, being a stay at home dad, has the better role.
Then, of course, he reminds me of the realities of what I am saying, and my gratitude for his generosity – staying home while I come to work to do a job that I love – returns.
I have to bring this verse from Ecclesiastes to mind regularly: St Martin’s and its students and families are whom God has placed in my hands for this season. When I’m tempted to look around at options that sometimes seem better, there is a discipline in reminding myself that all my might, strength, energy and passion can be spent here and on my family – my other calling – and while this work is sometimes hard, it is always a gift from God.
Our dear retired next-door neighbor is in her early 70s. She is also a recent widow. She spends all her days caring for her 96- and 98-year-old parents, and she does it with gratitude and passion that humble me. My father has laid aside a fair amount of his time at his own business to take up the work of caring for my mother as she battles cancer. The contractor on our house, Mike, a fair and skilled man, brings his whole self to the job, and we love his commitment to beautiful work. My friend Jon, an artist, bringing beauty to others, and the police officer outside the Greenwood King Offices, waving and smiling at those of us stuck in traffic on Woodway in the evening, all bring God to the world in obvious ways and many in hidden ones.
Work is part of God’s plan for all humanity in the world – not a punishment and not something to be idolized either; it is how we put our God-given gifts into action to bring the kingdom of God to earth. Your hands in hospitals, homes, offices, gardens, fields, ships, classrooms, planes, laboratories, government or at your computer are an opportunity to leave the world better than you found it for one person, or for generations to come.
If you can’t see how what you do can be the work of God, I pray that God reveals it to you this week, that even on hard days you would know that God can and will use you.
