Goodness and Fulfillment

When I am asked about my job, I always mention that it can be really difficult and crazy, but at least one thing happens every day that makes me laugh. That still holds true, but today I had a very special moment with a student who has never really opened up to me, and I don't think she realized how much it meant to me. In my time working with high school girls, I have found that initiating a difficult conversation can be much easier when riding in the car rather than sitting across from each other face-to-face. Today was one of those times.

I was bringing her back to the residence hall, and she asked me where I am from. I told her I'm from Georgia. Then, she asked, "Do you ever get homesick?" Thinking it was a fairly innocuous question, I gave a simple answer.

When I initially moved to Louisiana, my dad was a cancer patient, and I shared with the student some of the difficulties I faced being away during much of his treatment and most of his final days. My senior year in college, I ordered the book "What Cancer Cannot Do" which is a Christian book with short essays written by cancer patients and survivors. More than once in college, I read the book from cover to cover and cried. Today, I returned to the book in search of something comforting to say to someone who was hurting in a way that I had a few years ago.

I was stopped in my tracks and knew I needed to share a passage from one of the essays. The author writes of returning to work following her treatment and describes the joys of the sense of normalcy and focus that her job provided. She finishes by writing,

After the Fall, work became "painful toll." As a result work doesn't always feel like Paradise to us. Sometimes it feels like an avalanche of unfinished projects, a tightrope of interpersonal conflict, a murky cloud of expectations. But if it's truly the work that God has called us to do, then he will help us do it. And we will find goodness and fulfillment in it.

I love that the author chooses "avalanche" as one of her descriptors, because I have certainly had that feeling over the past few days. I have never experienced an avalanche myself, but I found myself visualizing all of the stress and emotion gaining on me as I attempted to run down a snowy mountain...and that was how I was feeling.

I am so thankful for this young woman who took the time to open up to me and share her struggles so I was led to find encouragement in my own life. Not everyone has the chance to work so closely with others or make a difference in others' lives quite like my job allows. Yes, it's challenging, but there is certainly goodness and fulfillment to be found in it. I expect that I will continue to find fulfillment as I work with my students in the coming months.