Tuesday Night Thoughts

When I was a little girl, I knew without a doubt that I wanted to be a famous and published children's book author. Everyday I wrote stories and illustrated them myself. I even looked forward to entering the Reading Rainbow Young Writers and Illustrators Contest (Now called PBS Kids Writers Contest). I think I entered in something almost every year. Even after I passed the age limit, I still wished that I could enter. (I think I won some sort of placement or was runner up one year.) Every day there was a new story or a new picture that I wanted to go along with a story. Sometimes, I didn't even have a story to write so I let a picture of a scene or character speak for itself.

Here I am, twenty years later with the same hopes and dreams (with a few modifications). I still want to be a published author for young girls and teens, particularly the black girls. Famous? Um... not quite sure but, if that's what God has in store then so be it. Well-known? That's more like it.

With all of that being said, I have always seen writing and storytelling as a major part of my life. It's a kind of work that makes me feel...good, fulfilled. As if it's what I needed to have been doing all along. When I write (whether it's for this blog, a writing contest, a journal entry or part of a story), I feel like I'm doing what God wants me to do.

All of this has me thinking about how we as {imperfect} humans view work. We go to jobs we dread to make money to pay for things that we also dread or can only enjoy for a short amount of time, then we go to sleep and repeat daily until retirement or death. I can't help but, think that when it comes to work, we're getting it all wrong. Where's the sense of fulfillment? Where's the joy? Where's the sense of fulfilling a deeper purpose?

It's evident that in Genesis before The Fall, God intended for work to be good. There was no misery, no groaning, no complaining because they (man and woman) were working within their intended purpose. And that purpose was to enjoy what God provided for them and to take care of it.

Does that mean that if we work within our intended purpose we'll always be happy, smiling and our lives will be hunky-dory forever? No. Because of sin, we'll still have our bad times but, when we follow Jesus and do what God calls us to do, the good will always outshine the bad. Despite our various circumstances, God does NOT intend for us to live miserable lives. That's not his doing. He knows infinitely more than we do and loves us infinitely so.

Still, what is it going to take to change our view of what "work" should be like?