May 17, 2021 – “My Favorite Job!”

       By what measure shall I choose just one job as my favorite?  When I think of the various ‘jobs’ I have had, I wonder which one I could rate as ‘favorite.  First, what did my jobs have in common?

Should I rate them by their challenge or the satisfaction doing the job gave me?  Cleaning house, baby-sitting, teaching in various ways, or giving care for my Mother, and then my husband are the part of the things that that took my time, but I didn’t consider them always as ‘jobs’. The times I led congregational music, sang solos, taught classes for children, or played the piano in church for weddings, funerals, and services were enjoyable and were not ‘jobs’.

Some jobs cannot be labelled a job, but a ‘calling’. The progression of ‘jobs’ in my life was a training ground God placed me in to help me grow in Him.

When I accepted Jesus and was baptized at the age of eight years, I didn’t realize the adventure in living He would provide. Now I see each job as a step that led me in growing closer to him as His Child.

House cleaning taught me that into each life some rain must fall.  As a child, my Mother made cleaning house on Saturday mornings an important production.  From the front door to the back door, there was dusting, sweeping and vacuuming. One Saturday, Mom gave my younger brother the job of vacuuming.  Later, not hearing the vacuum cleaner, she checked on Gene’s progress.  Gene was about ten years old at the time.  He sat on the living room carpet, with parts of the vacuum cleaner surrounding him.  Mom let him know quickly his next job included reassembling the vacuum cleaner. His mind was not on the completion of using the vacuum cleaner to clean, but how it worked. The first job of cleaning the apartment felt strange without the voice of Mother nearby. This job taught me, I needed guidance from God, no matter how small or large the job was.

Baby-sitting children taught me the wisdom of love above all when dealing with little children, and patience. And what did filing teach me?  Discernment and wisdom to find the important papers and ideas to refresh my mind.

After I finished college and began to travel and lead singing in revival meetings in various places, singing solos, and teaching children.  This is how I met my husband to be, a marriage that would continue for sixty-six years. Our marriage provided more learning on how to live together in a loving relationship with our precious children and forgiveness.

One day, I taught the son of a friend a piano lesson.  As I explained a chord to this young boy, I saw a glimmer of light and understanding.  In my heart at that moment, I knew I wanted to teach.

I continued to teach elementary music for three years.  Then we moved, and instead of a music teaching, I taught sixth grade and then second grade students. And later, in Arkansas, I taught identified gifted children.

What did I learn after teaching thirty-one years?  To listen, to love, and then students will learn.  One year, after we had been in school for about 3 weeks, one student asked, “When will you tell the chicken story?” This story came from my childhood when my brothers and I had the task of taking the feathers off the chickens that Dad killed before he left for delivering mail.  Mom was in the house and cutting up the chickens, preparing them to sell to a local restaurant. We were told not to ear the skin of the chicken. One chicken did not fare well. Jim, Gene, and I decided this chicken would not work.  So, we decided we needed to kill a chicken in its place.  We were all elementary school age.  We had watched Dad kill a chicken often.  My brothers, members of the cub scouts, retrieved their hatchet. We laid the chicken on a cement block. Gene held the legs, and I held the head, while Jim wielded the hatchet. He only nicked the neck, and here I always made like a chicken and rolled my eyes and squawked.

The second method was to hold the chicken by the head and the legs and twisted the neck. We didn’t take into consideration that Jim’s ‘reach’ would not allow this method to work.  (Again, I added some sound effects, and produced a chicken grunt.). Then we looked at the tub on wheels filled with water.  Then my brothers looked at each other.  It took all three of us to hold the hapless chicken under the water, but finally the chicken stopped fighting. This is the story the current sixth graders waited for each year.

         Nevertheless, I am continually with you; You hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward You will receive me to glory.  Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. Psalm 73:23-25.

The Caregiving began with Mother after I retired from teaching.  Between 1998, when Mother left us, and 2012, I painted murals at church, for Faithful Witness Drive-Through and the Fellowship Hall including this painting.

In 2011, I noticed changed in my husband. After a thorough diagnosis he was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia. With no hope of survival. We moved to be near one of my sons, and then Caregiving was a full-time ‘job’.

Contemplate my life and the ‘jobs’ I have enjoyed, I find that being a Mother, a grandmother, and a great grandmother has been most rewarding…and my favorite ‘job’.

When I learned that my Grandparents prayed for ‘those who come after”.  Nach Kommen is the Plautt Dietch (low German) for that phrase.  Now I understand that my sweetest job is to cover ‘those who come after’ with prayer.  God knows them now.

He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God.  Psalm 78:5-7.

This Lord God, who created us, provided a way that His Way of Peace and Joy will be given to the generations that follow. This is my favorite job.  Praying for my children, my grandchildren, and my great grandchildren, and ‘those who come after’.

I found my favorite ‘job’ at home.