Since yesterday got completely away before I even thought about blogging, I’m posting Saturday’s song tonight before Sunday gets away. :) Tonight as I was working on lesson plans for this week and getting distracted by different things, like keeping the vegetable soup (this week’s make-ahead lunch) from boiling over, I discovered this song (click here for a video with lyrics) as an indirect result of searching for homemade laundry detergent and dishwasher detergent recipes online. Anyway… this song was a timely encouragement to me. I have an ongoing struggle with seeing the worth in what I do. I do motherly things for my students — from taking care of nosebleeds to loose teeth to cleaning pee off the floor to dealing with discipline issues — but I don’t get to be their mother. I do teacherly things like teach about verbs, remind students to capitalize the first word in a sentence, and grade papers, but I’m not their regular classroom teacher. So, I give in to feeling sub-par to both groups, instead of focusing on what is true:
That my work was prepared by God for me to do before I was born.
That my work is a mercy from God to provide me with food, shelter, gas, medicine, and many other things.
That my work is a means of sanctification: practice in patience, practice in kindness, practice in love, practice in self-control.
That the work God is doing in me brings him pleasure.
That my job — or any other job — cannot completely satisfy, because only God can.
I mention this because I do not think I am a unique situation. No matter who the person or what the job — from mother, to clerk, to secretary, to librarian, to social worker, to politician, to CEO — any work has its shortcomings and brings doubts of meaningfulness. And still it is the same for them all: any good work done to the glory of God does not fail to please Him. And no work is too mundane, too unimportant, or too unseen that He cannot use it.
Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Hebrews 13:20-21
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10
thoughts and songs 