Yesterday, I attended a new Church in my quest to find just the right one for me, and eventually Joe who is letting me do the choosing. This particular Church had a good “feel” to it and has potential to be where I end up. Since Church and going to Church and participating in music ministries is such a big part of my personal fulfillment, it isn’t a choice I will make for any reason other than it being where I feel most comfortable, most led to be if that makes sense. I was being silly when I said I choose a church based on what color choir robes they wear and which I look best in. Though I daresay there are probably people out there that use criteria as “silly” as that to pick their church home. I have to admit that I prayed before entering “Lord if this is the right place for me, let me know somehow”. It would be easy to say that the sunflowers (my most favorite thing in the world next to quilts) on the altar were a sign but I won’t go there. I think somewhere in the Bible it says not to look for signs…but I still do. Every time I see a cardinal for example, I say “thank you God, for that reminder, that I am blessed”. Not really a sign but more of a prompt for me to get outside of my “own world” and pause to give thanks.
The sermon was really good and one of those where you feel like they wrote it just for you. Thankfully, the sermon was on Labor and not some sin I committed since it felt that way. I admit instead of being grateful for the time I have now to rest and restore and relax, I am so caught up in the process of trying to restore things to the norm, i.e. find a job…that I forget that we are actually doing ok.
We are in the RV which as hard I am sure it is for some to understand why we are doing that, I love. It’s small and cozy and under a big tree and next to others who have decided to give up their home and all the “trappings” of having a home. Its not for everyone, I’d go crazy if I were in this small space with more than just Joe, but its home. I love the freedom of knowing that if we wanted to move tomorrow all it would take is a one ton truck and off we could go. I feel like a college kid again, that feeling where all your worldly possessions fit in the car and your possibilities are endless.
The sermon made 5 points. 1. The Bible is pro-work 2. Job satisfaction is a gift from God 3. Our work is an advertisement for God 4. Out worth is based on who we are, no what we do and 5. A call to “do your work heartily for the Lord
The 4th point is the one that truly resonated with me. Obviously, with a job loss comes a loss of income but selling the house and getting totally out of debt made that almost a mute point. It takes a heck of a lot less to live when you own your home (RV), when you cool 380 square feet (instead of 2000) and pay only a small fee for the land you park on. With unemployment and Joe working full time, our needs are more than met. It amazes me to think how hard I was working to make so much money to pay off so many bills. Last week in the mail, I received one bill. That’s it. And it was for a debt I had already mailed the check for. No, what I miss most is the role, the identity that my job gave me. The first 3 points he made all spoke to that. I love to work. I think it’s a privilege to work, and I had job satisfaction because I was in the right “role” at work, one in which my gifts and talents were a match. And I liked being around people, learning from them and being the best person I could be, an advertisement as such for my faith.
Our society is one in which sometimes it isn’t who you are but what you do in the eyes of others. What parent says “I hope my son or daughter grows up to be a used car salesman or flips hamburgers at McD’s. No, most would say they want them to be something that makes good money or has prestige…doctors, lawyers…..Indian chiefs. I remember my mom used to say that rhyme…rich man, poor man, beggerman, thief, Dr., lawyer, Indian chief.” Yesterday, at Church during the “greeting part” one woman told me her name and I told her mine and she then asked “where do you work” and pulled back at the words “unemployed” as if I were some weird person that had come to find out if the Church had a hand out program. That’s how it felt anyway. The pastor spoke of stay at home mom’s who always feel their value is somewhat less because they aren’t out earning a pay check when in reality, they are doing something truly valuable..Raising their children. The last Church I attended when asked what I did I said “I was (key word was..I didn’t lie) a Business Manager for a Hospice before we moved to Tulsa. To which the response was “oh I so admire people who work with the dying, etc. etc. etc. and as others came up to be introduced the original lady would say “this is LeeAnn, she managed a hospice before she moved here.” No one even asked what I was presently doing. I had already been solidified in their mind as a Hospice Manager, what an h honorable and worthy thing to do.
The point is that Job or No job I matter to God. I may not be quite up to par in the eyes of society, half of whom cringe at the word unemployed as if I am a leper, and the other half who say “If I were you I’d draw unemployment for as long as I could, let the government pay you for a change” like I am representing the folks who want to “screw the government”. LOL
Since it was Labor Day weekend Sunday, there were “labor quotes” flashing on the screen during the sermon. One of them by Winston Churchill “Success comes from going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm” made me think. Not that I’m going from failure to failure because in that regard I don’t consider the loss of my job a failure, rather the failure of another to recognize value when he saw it. But the not losing enthusiasm part was very relevant. Some days I think what's the point . Most days I am on the computer, typing the same information over an over to one of many job openings, thanking God that my “skills” are not so unique that I have only a few options, but skills that are generic enough that I am qualified for a lot of things.
Maybe this “work”, this work of finding a job is the “advertisement for God” that the pastor spoke of. I may not be in the workforce but I am well aware that there are people watching me, rooting for me, suffering with me when some young punk of a manager looks at me and thinks “she’s like a grandma” she can’t possible do this job…lol. This experience, like so many others in my life is equipping me with valuable skills that may not be marketable but are as valuable as a paycheck.
And every time I look back on a particularly difficult period of my life, hindsight being 20/20, I am able to see where that loss, or that failure, shaped me into the person I am and in every case gave me another tool in my toolbox to help others.
My role may have changed but that’s just a part of life. I will always be a mother. My “mothering” is totally different at each phase of my sons’ life. I will always be a daughter. I will always be a sister.
Maybe instead of saying “I am unemployed” in response to those who ask “what do you do” I will say I am retired. It’s basically the same thing but one sounds much better. One leads to “you are so lucky to have all that time, I’m sure you worked hard all your life and are enjoying it and how fun to be able to live in an RV, wow, I hope to be able to do that someday! ” The other leads to “oh poor woman, she lost her job, she must’ve done something wrong or they would have kept her, and how long did she say she’s been looking?...oh dear, she’ll never find a good job at her age…did you hear?, she had to move into an rv…poor thing.
The last couple of months have really opened my eyes to things that I had not ever really thought about. I, like many others, thought if someone was unemployed there must be a reason. And I’ve come to realize through my own situation, that sometime there isn’t a reason. Instead of seeing a homeless person under the bridge and thinking immediately “druggie”, I now wonder if he was a banker, or a businessman who got laid off and couldn’t find a job and lost everything once his unemployment ran out. And I will admit that now when I see a person on a corner with a sign “will work for food” I don’t fight the urge to roll down my window and shout “get a job” like I used to. Now, I give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they tried to get a job and couldn’t. But for the grace of God, go I.
My huskie, Shelby is now residing at a shelter in Tahlequah that one of my old classmates directs. When we went to take her, I wasn’t sure what I would find. What I found was a group of men in a home that gives them respite from the world. Gives them an opportunity to get back on their feet by helping them with work searches and providing them with a bed and meals and others to care about them. Shelby’s work is to give unconditional love to these men who offer the same to her in return. Tom is a person who didn’t just give lip service to helping others…he is doing it and asks for nothing in return. They exist on donations, on the kindness of others such as Tom. (if you want to contribute to a good cause, message me and I’ll give you the details). These men didn’t set out to be in a Men’s shelter. Sometimes life throws a curve ball at you and you make the best of it.
And just because someone isn’t working doesn’t mean they are less valuable than those who are. Job or no job, every person matters to God. My sense of worth and status shouldn’t be defined by what people think of me, but what God thinks of me. My “stock” doesn’t rise and fall with the “market”. It remains steady in God’s eyes. I may beat myself up and have moments of feeling like I don’t matter now that I’m not working but I know that those moments are fleeting, replaced quickly by drawing on my faith and knowing that the real value, my real value is measured not by the money I make, but by the lives I touch.
Loss of enthusiasm? Not me. I have gained a lot of knowledge as I work my way through this new role in which 23 million people find themselves. Unemployed. I had the blessing of being “happily employed” for many, many years. There were times when I found myself “unhappily employed”. Most of the time these days I am unhappily unemployed. Other days I am happily unemployed. I’ve had the opportunity to experience all 4 and in doing so have “enlarged my territory “ in the words of Jabez. I am more empathetic, less judgmental.
Job or no job, I matter. To the people I love and mostly to God. That’s worth a lot more than a paycheck.
No comments:
Post a Comment