Work - That Four Letter Word

I am aging, getting closer to that golden egg called retirement. I have all these grand ideas illusions about how much time I will have to write, paint and do all the things I've been dreaming about, not to mention not worrying about the stress of work. Am I doing a good job? Am I making too many mistakes? Have I annoyed anyone today? 

Believe it or not, worrying about whether I've annoyed someone gives me more stress than the others, almost. I worry about how I treat others to a nearly obsessive level. Why? Too many years in retail. My entire livelihood depended on whether my customers were happy enough to come back, and tell others about my business. I could not afford to offend anyone.

And then, the other issue, the loves of my life won't support me (not referring to my husband). My passions might have, had I been given the opportunity to follow them as careers, but God had other plans, and I did other things to put that proverbial bread on the table. End result, I've had to scramble, give up sleep and make other compromises in order to fit my talents into a hectic life. ( I call them them talents or passions. Sometimes my husband calls them something else.)  

One morning, while yearning for that golden moment of retirement, God burst my little bubble with one of Paul's Epistles. He worked! He stated that his own two hands supplied all his needs, even after being charged with the important task of spreading The Gospel. 

Does that mean retiring from a day job isn't it my future? I don't know. Surely that time will come, yet I get the distinct impression that I  may be trading one type of work for another. Even my passions entail work of some kind. It isn't all pleasurable. My hope-to-soon-be published novel has many levels of just plain old hard work, revising, editing, polishing, until I wonder why in the heck I wanted to write the darn thing in the first place. That's about the time God sends the lions, (see Lions and Other Things (Why I Write), and I get right back to that four letter word, work. 

I don't know what really lies in the future. Only God knows. And because I don't know, I need to pay attention to today, and not live in some future state that may or may not ever happen, and waste what time I do have. Tough to do, especially when I get to do all the things I love over the weekend, and then comes the shock of Monday morning, and I'm right back doing what others want me to and dreaming of retirement once again. 

In retrospect, that is what is at the heart of my issue with work. I want to do what I want when I want, and Work won't let me. Hmm sounds a bit self-centered and selfish doesn't it? And that might be the exact reason God brought me up short on that little desire. 

And so, I must now go get ready for Work, in whatever form it takes. I can take off some of the stress by remembering my earlier post, I have Nothing to Prove, and stop worrying about what others think, or do, and concentrate on what God thinks. And you know what? He thinks I'm awesome!