None of us is self-sufficient – we all depend on the work of others for our comfort and our daily survival. Whatever the work you do, perhaps you can take a moment this Labor Day to honor all the ways in which the work others engage in contributes to your well-being.
What work would you love to do? What work are you really grateful someone else takes on, and you don’t have to?
Two approaches to “work”! My passion would lie in
finding one child who needs a lot of attention and love and give it to him or her. No reason I couldn’t be doing that right now. This makes me think of where my efforts are placed or not placed. Regarding what work I wouldn’t want to do: full time nursing. I learned a bit about this when caring for my mom as she aged so I know I can do it but if it were others than family members, I would have an aversion to ministering to someone I wasn’t close to. That is why I appreciate the kind of work that nurses do every day to care for patients in hospitals or in homes.
Patt, I don’t know if this would appeal to you, but I was just thinking about an older lady from my church who took in foster kids, not as a permanent placement, but as a “hotline” carer. Kids would spend a night or a few with her when they were first taken, or if their long-range placement wasn’t working and a new placement was yet to be found, or sometimes if a parent had nobody to turn to in an emergency. For example, there was a single dad with a medical condition where the episodes would require hospitalization, and since he had no family around, his son would stay with my friend.
I had wanted to do this, but I had to wait until I got more stable myself, then I realized I’m probably not cut out for it.
I’m looking at becoming a librarian, because I’ve worked at libraries over the last couple decades, liked it, and never got fired from a library (unlike the other jobs I’ve tried). I am incredibly grateful that my mom put me in the teen volunteer program when she returned to work, and grateful that Becky was doing it and her mom told my mom…Geez, if moms didn’t talk to each other, no one would have known anything (1990’s small town). If it wasn’t a work study job, which I had to lose when I graduated, I would probably still be at the research library I was at for my last two years of college. I loved it and wouldn’t have quit.
I couldn’t be a doctor or a nurse; I just couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t work in waste water treatment (I react strongly to smells in general). I couldn’t handle being a parent–I need a lot of sleep, I don’t like noise, and I can’t trust myself not to hurt my child when I lose my temper–but at least I know that. I am grateful for scientists who invent great highly effective forms of birth control and for the factory workers who make them.
Maggie, you are so thoughtful of me and my message. I see that you are a person who solves problems along the way and are honest with yourself about those you aren’t able to handle. Perhaps I should borrow some ideas from you; when I was a teacher, I realized being with kids and helping them grow up at school is a lot different that raising them at home. When I was a teacher I could send the kids home after class. Just maybe I can find some place where I can help kids but not in the house where I live. Thanks!!
Maggie, you may not find this second reply but I wanted to tell you of anexperience with a child and smles that recently appened. In the grocery stor, as I was browsing the greeting cards, a young bouncy little girl appeared and started talking to me; finding from her that her parens had told her to come to tnhis aisle while they shlopped, she and I carried on a live, friendl dialoge, She then danced, did cartwheels(!) and used some of the nearby Halloween masks to show them to me! We discussed birthdaqys, she having haqd one recently as jad I, and when she said “Are you leaving now?”. and I said “Yes”, she called after me with a lovelt
Patt’s continuation: (the reply above got away from me, with so many spelling mistakes: sorry!) the end of my with this delightful encounter with the little girl, was a resounding HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! from her. That among other birthday greetings this year, was the most memorable.