This article  is written to link with Five Minute Friday, where we write for five minutes on a one word prompt without editing. This week’s prompt is “work.”  It is being written from the hospital room where my current work is taking care of our special needs and medically fragile adult son who is in ICU recovering from pneumonia.

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From the time I became an adult, my understanding of what work looks like in my life has changed repeatedly. When I first graduated from college, I had a clear picture of what work would mean in my life. And for two years, I loved being a kindergarten teacher. But after that, God had different plans for my life.

First, I sensed God calling me to go to Bible college. My work then was being a student. There I learned a lot about the Bible, but I also met my future husband.

After marriage, my idea of work again changed. It included taking care of our home and meeting the needs of my husband.

Soon, that expanded to be the “house mother” for a group of young men attending a school of discipleship we were a part of.

That season ended, and I bcame pregnant with ourfirst child. Again, my idea of work shifted. I still had a home and husband to take care of, but my main focus became caring for our precious daughter.

Next, following an auto accident that took the life of our young daughter and left me in a wheelchair, my work became recovering my health through therapy to strengthen my body. Shortly after that, I began working in a newspaper office run by the ministry we had become a part of a few months before our accident.

I could go on to include many other forms of work between then and my current varied work of being bookkeeper for my husband’s home business, caregiver for our special needs son, writer, Bible teacher, and one of the leaders of a Christian support group for ladies with chronic illness. But I think I’ve shared enough to get across the message on my heart today.

The two most important things I’ve learned in the last forty-seven years are:

• The things we do change, but work of some sort is an important part of daily life. Work is a constant part of our lives, whether or not we go to what is usually called a job.
• What we do in our work isn’t nearly as important to God as how we do it. God gives clear instructions in His Woork concerning the how. We are to put our whole heart into whatever we are doing at the time, and we are to do it “as for the Lord and not for the Lord and not for men.”

“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” Colossians‬ ‭3:23-24‬ ‭ESV‬‬