Blooming in a New Way

AFTER SEVERAL WEEKS’ absence from work, I began to feel the pull of the office. I missed my colleagues and my clients, so I mustered as much energy as I could and reappeared. Everything looked the same, but nothing was the same. Over twenty-six hundred years ago Heraclitus said no one could step into the same river. I could see his point. Life had rolled on, and the well-oiled machinery of the place where I had spent much of my adult life had continued without me—very well indeed.

I WAS SOMEWHAT PLEASED. I’d been a good team player if my absence could be worked around, but mostly I was disappointed. Did I make so little difference to an organization I’d doted on for so many years?

WORSE, WHEN I COMPARED MYSELF to that formerly efficient self whose memory was never fuzzy, whose energy never flagged, I was even more deflated. By noon I had that leaden sensation exhaustion brings. I went home feeling that the race was passing me by, feeling I’d been kept in from recess without quite understanding how the punishment could have been avoided. In a world I’d once believed was governed by “Can he?” and “Will he?” I could no longer answer either with a yes.

I WAS IN DANGER OF FEELING USELESS. It doesn’t take a read of the first two chapters of Genesis to know man was meant to work. Uselessness would not lead me anywhere I wanted to go. I needed to redefine success for myself. Using accomplishments as a yardstick was only going to frustrate me.

I HAD TO LOOK TO SOMETHING that gave a rebirth to my sense of self-worth, and I found it in Colossians 3:23. “Whatever your task, put yourselves into it as done for the Lord and not for your masters . . . You serve the Lord.”

I’D NEVER paid much attention to this verse before, but here was an answer. I began to list the things that, at the end of each day, I could count as serving. A kind word. A smile. Encouragement. Willingness to accept help. Showing gratitude to others. Now I was on to something!

You’re blessed. Be a blessing!