Love's Labor

During my life I have had several, very different jobs. I have worked at a shrub nursery.  I've done landscaping.  I've worked as an advertising director at a newspaper.  I've done bookkeeping.  I've worked in a sheriff's office.  I've been an office manager, an arts council director, a gallery director and curator, a gallery manager and a secretary.  I gained knowledge from each job.  


Of all of the jobs, I would have to say that the one that was most totally gratifying was doing landscaping. I was able to get my hands into the earth, marvel at God's magnificent creation, plant and design my own Garden of Eden, work from "can't see to can't see" and be so exhausted at the end of the day that I would literally fall asleep in the bathtub.  I am not afraid of nor unfamiliar with hard work.

There is something satisfying about doing work. Sure, there's the money, if it is a paying job, but there is something else.... something emotionally gratifying about completing a task. It is spiritual gratification to do work that you lose yourself in, doing it in the best way that you can, knowing that you are doing it because it is the right  thing to do, without pay, without fanfare, without any thought of being thanked or praised... simply because it is the right thing to do. It is how we show our love for others, to do without expecting anything in return.

That is what church work is about. Our church has several such people.  There are some who see that something needs to be done and without being asked, they just do it. They don't complain or call attention to themselves, they aren't looking for any recognition. What they are doing, they do because it is the right thing to do and it is something between them and God. They volunteer to do all sorts of things because there is always something that needs to be done around a church and community. If you were to ask any one of them, they would tell you that THEY get more of a blessing out of doing for others than the ones who receive it. I believe it is true because I have experienced it myself.

Philippians 2:3-8

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.  Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Work for money feeds the body, but work without pay feeds the soul.  Examine yourself.  What are you doing to feed your soul?

Allegiance

We've only been married  3 years and I was almost 52 when we got married so this whole Preacher's Wife thing really is a different thing for me.  I grew up in the Baptist Church and felt so out of place there.  As an adult, I joined the Episcopal Church and felt that I had found my home.  I still feel that way and for that same reason, I resist leaving the church and joining the Methodist Church.   I have my own ideas about God and Christ and my relationship with them and theirs with the world.  I really feel that at its core, my allegiance is to God and not to the governance of His body on earth.  


While I attend church with my husband every week, it still gives me a thrill when we are able to attend an Episcopal service.  Just a few weeks ago we were in Williamsburg and went to the Bruton Parish for Evensong.  I think it's the reverence and majesty of it all that touches me.  The focus is entirely on God, not me or you or the person across the aisle.  I alway leave feeling as if my soul has been soothed by the hand of God.  Sometimes I almost ache for it.

"O my God that I had understanding and learning and a new language in order to magnify Thy works... Everything fails me, O my Lord, but if Thou will not abandon me, I will never fail Thee."             St. Teresa of Avila,  1515-1582