Open Your Door

Most people go through life never experiencing and living out what they were designed to do.  We may experience the joys of painting or writing or building things with our hands as a child,  and we get messages, that those are all fine and good, but… some day you’ll have to make a living.   Always the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” 

$$$$ Hence, the talents God planted inside you whether it was designing, or leading others or organization or looking at bugs under a microscope are put on a shelf in your soul’s closet as you pursue higher education that will result in a “career”. 

Thousands of young and old alike will scour the up and coming “hot” careers that will be in demand.  You may even take “aptitude” tests that will tell you what you are most likely to succeed in.  Advisers in high school and college  lay out your next four to six to eight years of course work and labs and internships.  All the while you are deceiving yourself that you have found the path that will lead to success and prosperity and happiness.  But you know deep down you are wrong.  There is still a little part of you that wants to build, create, teach, write, lead others, paint or whatever it was you did as a child but that you were told you couldn’t  do and make a living at.  Make a living.  What an odd turn of a phrase. 

If we grind out a degree in something of mediocrity, or even if it is something we halfway enjoy to pay the bills and get from Monday to Friday so we can enjoy two days off, is that “Making a Living?” or  living to make a way

When I was a little girl, I loved playing with dolls.  I wanted to be a mommy soooooooooooo bad!  After the turbulent  years of the 70’s I got my chance and with a supportive husband, was able to stay home with my children during their formative years.  I loved it and know that it made a difference in their education, their emotional security and well being.  However, it was the hey day of the feminist movement and I got lots of “and what is it you do all day?”questions for women my age that felt they had to justify their college degree by working and juggling day care and dinner and cleaning house at 11:00pm.  It was everywhere.  In the magazines, on the talk shows, even the movies.  I didn’t have a college degree, so I really scored low on the dumb housewife scale.  Poor little thing.  At home with two kids all day ( how does she do it?).  I was in hog heaven!  We had planned activities, we visited the library once a week, we went on field trips to the fire station, the local bakery, and museums.  We made homemade play dough, we painted with pudding and shaving cream and learned to count with buttons, coins and seeds.  We planted a garden and harvested our own vegetables and planned trips to blackberry patches where we picked berries that we ate by the hand fulls and then  picnicked and filled baskets for cobblers. 

As the children grew, so did I.  I prepared for their departure by returning to school to get my “Degree”.  Then I would be validated, right?  I chose a “Hot field”.  The only trouble is by the time I graduated, the field had grown cold.  So, I went into another field and made a living.  Day after day.  I made a living.  Year after year I made a living.  For years I have been making a living.  Living for the weekend to begin living. 

Then one day, my passion fluttered. Like a small moth in a drawer that needs to be let out.  I listened.  What was that?  It fluttered again and again.  It was the Spirit of God, telling me, listen to the gift I gave you.  Don’t Waste it!.  You have a love for children I planted in you.  Pursue it.  Since that time, I have been teaching.   It won’t make me rich, but my joy is something that can’t be described.  It is not happiness.  Happiness comes and goes.  Joy is with you all the time.  It satisfies.  You can have a bad day and know that tomorrow will be better.  You will not feel as if you are slogging through mud.  Joy is knowing that my passion is not my own and my strength is not my own.  I am making a difference in the lives of a few and I’m bucking the system.  I’ve always liked that.

I am not against having the finer things in life at all, but what is that really?  At the end of the day, isn’t it being with the ones you love, a good glass of wine,  and knowing you have done what you love?

Contentment is a stranger to most of us.  Like octopi we spend ourselves gathering goods, scrambling after promotions, grades and juggling to include one more handful.  Eventually, we collapse with full hands and empty hearts. 

The wealthiest man, King Soloman, probably wrote, “Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind”(Eccle. 4:6)

Tags: careers, grades, King Solomon, living, paiting, promotions, prosperity, success, teaching, Tranquility, writing