As we gear up to celebrate Labor Day, I started to think about some of the jobs I been blessed to have. I remember my first job.
I worked in a chicken house helping clean out dead chickens and scoop poop. It was a stinky and disgusting job, but I learned to appreciate working indoors because of that job. I also helped clean house for a little, elderly lady.
My mother swore that I would destroy her washing machine and flood her house when she found out that I had shoved all of her laundry, her kitchen rugs, and her sheets and towels into the same load. It was my first time doing laundry, and I think God gave me a big helping of His grace doing her laundry. As I grew up, I cleaned offices for a friend's dad. He had this really big buck with a lot of points hanging on the wall in his office. Some of you may not know, but I have a slight blind spot in my peripheral vision on my right side.
I was busy cleaning when I suddenly felt myself being stabbed in the head- by a deer! I think I struggle with remembering people's names to this day due to that brain injury ( at least that's my story, and I'm sticking with it!). Once I attended college, I worked as a library assistant.
I knew that there was a perfect corner in the library where I could sneak a nap if I had been up too late studying. I'm pretty sure my boss knew about that corner, also. There was the summer job as a bank teller. I remember one particularly rough day when I walked out of my parent's house and realized my car keys and house keys were locked inside. I looked for the outside spare key only to remember that my mother had seen something on television about break-ins and had removed the key earlier that week. I trudged down to my cousin's house hoping for a ride to work. She happened to see me, and I got a ride with only a little bit of tardiness.
As I started prepping my drawers for the day/entering cash, I smelled something. I thought that someone seriously had stomach issues. The smell lingered. At one point, I looked down and noticed a smear of something on my mat in my window. I had stepped in doggy doo at my cousin's house! I furiously scrubbed my shoes in the bathroom and got a lot of laughs as word got out that I was the cause of the smell that reeked in the bank! Another college job was as a waitress at a buffet restaurant. This one was humbling.
My uniform looked like a Waffle House server. It was the point when I realized a person's Christian witness can go completely out the window by how we treat others. Time and time again, I saw people come straight out of church in their nice clothes yelling at underpaid waitresses because their soda was flat, or we ran out of chicken.
It made me more empathetic for workers who work in servant jobs. I worked as a CNA for a time when my children were little. It was the only job that would allow me to work nights and watch them during the day. It was the hardest job I have ever done. As I watched short-staffed and tired employees trying to feed, clothe, and change the elderly, I was humbled by the job of being a servant.
It made me think about Jesus' calling to each of us. Luke 22:26 (NIV) But it is not this way with you, but the one who is the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the servant. Having worked multiple jobs in my beginning days in the workforce, I thought about the jobs that involved being a servant.
The first thing I remembered was that you always took care of the people entrusted to you first. Whether it was a person eating in a restaurant, the little lady I helped, or the elderly clients in the nursing home, I put them ahead of my own desires.
If they needed help, I didn't argue that they could do it themselves. I just did it. I also had to humble myself often. It was very humbling cleaning someone after they defecated. I changed my children's diapers, but changing an adult's is different. It was humbling for them and me.
Another thing that I noticed was that you had to find value in helping others, not in the pay because the pay never matched the work required. So, how do these things tie into Jesus' calling to us?
We are called, even as leaders, to put others ahead of ourselves. The Golden Rule still applies today. If I treat others how I want to be treated, a lot of drama disappears. We are called to humble ourselves. Nothing can be more humbling than when Jesus washed the feet of His disciples. I think about the nasty, dirty sandaled feet of His disciples. Would I have touched them?
Yet Jesus, their leader was willing to lower Himself to serve His people. I think about the fact that helping others doesn't always give us recognition or money, but it does give us the blessings and love of our heavenly Father. So as we celebrate Labor Day, think about all the people who serve you every day from the drive-thru person at McDonalds to the checker at the grocery store. Show patience and kindness because you may be witnessing with your actions whether you realize it or not.
As a Christian, show God's love by following in the steps of Jesus by becoming a servant to others. The salary is phenomenal- eternal reward!
Have a great week high-heeled warriors!
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