Day 9: Lent for my Working

At 27 years old, I’m still not sure what to call work.

It can be that deep, natural gifting that brings us to life everyday that we engage it;

it can be the 8-hour shift we pull to put food on the table,

and sometimes, it can be a little bit of both.

And if we choose to view our life through the lens of everything-is-holy,

maybe work becomes something we do to make our human experience more meaningful in every way.

I work as a mother and a wife and a deacon and a worship leader, and I find that with every season the work given to me expands and takes a new shape.

About a year ago I prayed for something that would allow me to make a little money for my family, but give life back to me as I did it.

A few months later, I found Rachel and her little girl Avery, and the relationship that seeped out of that is something I could never have expected.

I get to play guitar and laugh and sing with Avery and Laila, who are going to display their gifts for an audience soon to celebrate what we’ve done together.

A need was met in a beautiful way, and in the midst of lingering in thanksgiving over it, a friend offered me a scriptwriting job for a number of promotional videos.

I get to piece together words and emotions and stories, and celebrate a gift that I love, a good and kind work for my heart.

And in the summer I am going back to school, finishing a bachelor’s degree that it’s taken me years to get to the end of.

School is a work that I love dearly, the ability to use my brain and my intellect and my heart to engage my world and the bigger world around me.

And the truth that I am realizing is that in this current season, work is something that is shaping me into a new mother, a better writer, a fuller human being.

And these days I remember who shapes me, the path He walked from humanity to the cross to glory.

I remember that the work He did makes a way for the work I do, every realm of it, every season and manifestation of it.

Work is the journey to get us from here to there, the opportunity to make something meaningful out of everything that we’re about.

Our work is our family, our community, our prayers, our gifts, our labor and toil to survive.

Dhyani Ywahoo, a Cherokee writer, says

“It is our spiritual duty to pray in the morning, to pray in the evening, to call people together in joy, to eat together, to be happy human beings together.”

If that alone is the work we intend to do everyday, it is sacred enough to bring Kingdom in and around us, to bring us all closer to the truth and life of this Lent and coming Easter season.

Hallelujah for our good work, whatever it may be.