There is Hope for Me Yet

(source?)

 This last month and a half my life has been well, crazy. My job, while I love my co-workers, bosses and yes, even the "guests" (they're customers ok?), my job itself is difficult. So difficult that sometimes I just want to walk out right then and there and have to fight within myself to stay. Between being there and knowing I have to go there has been a source of unidentified stress for some time. There are days of course, when things aren't so bad. But this past Saturday and Sunday I literally had to leave the store premise for one of my breaks in order not to quit. I'm sure many people have been there. Still there is hope.

The job burns me out nearly every time before I ever finish an eight hour day, (most of the time I burn out by the 4th hour). Why don't I just quit? Because I have my college loans to pay off, living expenses (which gladly aren't too much) and all the jobs that I want to apply to require in addition to a B.A. at least 4+ years of experience, which I just don't have. I've thought about starting up my own thing, but frankly I need to go to work too. I need co-workers and honestly, a steady paycheck.

Work itself isn't so bad. It's just I don't belong there. I don't fit there. So this last month and then some have been a roller coaster and I didn't recognize that my job was one of the huge contributing factors until today. As a regular closer, I would experience the intense pressure to help guests, while also completing numerous tasks that everyone knows (literally) can't be actually finished. The stress was piling up without my knowledge and coming out in tears nearly everyday.

Today, I came to work for a morning shift instead. And I was being trained for a vastly different position. Instead of helping guests and working on the sales floor, I got to take on specific tasks and projects. Understanding that I need a sense of accomplishment in the workplace has at least opened my eyes to part of the reason why I rather despise my regular position. Sorry for complaining so much too!

But the major difference has been this: doing everything out of love for Jesus. I'm being serious here. Today while it was unlike most workdays in what I was doing, yet it was exceptionally different in that it didn't seem like I was actually doing anything. That may not make sense to you, but it's the most straight forward way to say it. To quote Frank Laubach from Practicing of the Presence of God, "I feel myself simply being carried along." And by the way, the book I just mentioned- I simply can't get enough of it. Brother Lawrence, who wrote The Practice of the Presence of God (which is included in the book I mentioned earlier), worked years doing kitchen duty and other tasks he admitted that he had a natural aversion to, and yet found that through carrying on an inner conversation with God and doing all things for the love of God drastically changed everything.

"There is hope for me yet, because God won't forget all the plans he's made for me. I have to wait and see, he's not finished with me yet."

-Brandon Heath, "Wait and See" from What if We