Job’s A Good ‘un

There’s a word that was often bandied about in the home in which I spent the first 17 years of my life and that word is work-less.  It is not a term of endearment neither is it an incentive to put in the work now so that you can eventually work less.  Indeed the similar word lazy sums the concept motivating work-less.  Yet in as much as ‘lazy’ is not a great reference, the term ‘work-less’ is far more derogatory, especially when it is spoken with the venom reserved for the poor victim who has been found guilty of such a charge.

Funnily enough, I was often the victim of such a charge.  Not that it was levelled at me often, but when it was the sting stung.  I acknowledge that I had a penchant for the life less work-full and would often pursue it diligently escaping chores and duties whenever the opportunity presented itself and often when it didn’t.  Yet eventually, particularly with the help of a sister who was quick to seize the chance to make a mug out of me and get me to do her week’s washing up, I resigned myself to the inevitability of work as a part of life.  Sometimes the mundane just had to get done to allow the proper cycle of life to transpire.

By the time I left home for university I was hardly the tooled out domesticated dude, but I still got it that things had to be done to make sure the wheels kept turning.  Those university years and a few years after that really hammered home how much I had to learn about the place work should play in my life.  That came to a head when marriage was mooted and became a reality.  As for when the children came along, well if I was guilty of being ‘work-less’ before that charge just couldn’t stick any more or there would be daughters dragging their poor carcass around looking bedraggled and neglected.

This whole concept of work in the adult years also centred around being available for paid employment and that whole thing of working your way to get the things you desire.  Indeed the concept of vocation is working out in response to the call God makes.  No vocation has ever demanded the subject of the call to take it easy and chill full-time in obedience to that chill.  Some level of activity and operation is required to get the fruits of what was prayed for.

I was going to go into the full spiel of my working life from the paper round days to present, but that can wait another time.  What’s of greater importance is the present scene.

Obedience to the call of God to move on from Stoke-on-Trent also brought with it a level of uncertainty when it came to employment.  It was clear that I should move on from the YMCA, but it wasn’t clear what I should move to.  Even the clarity of moving on from YMCA was daunting as there was no doubt it was the best job I’d have and it would be the grace of God if I were to ever come across circumstances like that again.

There was also the fact that the great timing that I have I chose to move on whilst the country was still in the middle of a recession and the area into which I was moving was suffering as much as anyone job-wise from the crippling nature of the economic climate.  Work colleagues and other friends did question the wisdom of making such a move at such a time.  Quite right too, especially when the answer to the question of where I was going ended with the phrase ‘I don’t know’.  I wasn’t being funny, I genuinely didn’t know.

What I did know was that ten years earlier when I moved to Stoke-on-Trent I spent the best part of a year unemployed.  Not a great experience I can tell you and in as much as I am grateful for the welfare system in the country, the level of bureaucracy that runs it is not very welcoming.  Yet here I was ten years on moving into the same situation.  I admit to dreading that prospect with all the alarm that I approach a plate of Marmite and cheese (that be a great deal of dread for those who are not aware of my anti-Marmite and vocal support for the abolition of cheese).

So there was no clue of what I would be going into and whether there would be something to go into.  Part of the reason for the hard month of February was that it was spent unemployed and thus having to go through the welfare roundabout which is not designed to be in anyway encouraging, motivating or soul-uplifting.  (That’s a critique of the system, but I’m only too aware that there are well meaning staff employed in that system who genuinely have the concerns of those in that unfortunate position close to heart.  I thank God for such people.)

As it was an opportunity emerged from a job I’d applied for back in January.  Having not heard anything for weeks, I’d considered it another company missing out on the great package that’s offered in DMCD.  As it was the company got back in touch and long story short (although long story available on request, it is a doozy) against the odds I was offered a job in Wigan.  Funnily enough the job is working with the 18-24 age bracket who have been unemployed for over six months and giving them work placement opportunities to help develop their employability profile.

So having vowed to get out of the youth business having trawled the various elements of it for almost 15 years, God still keeps me in there among them and now closer to the tutoring deal of getting to see people begin to realise their potential.  Only here, similar to the YMCA clientele, I’m working with those who are considered near the bottom of the barrel, stuck in habits and lifestyles that perpetuate sub-standard approaches to the wonder of life as God would have it.  I get to get my heart mucky with them again and get them to have a go at raising their aspirations a bit higher and recognising there is more to life that going on the benefits merry-go-round.  A challenging job, sure, but immensely rewarding I can imagine.

What’s even more amazing and a credit to the grace of God is that having left a job in the middle of a recession, against all odds, the job I find myself in is the best paying in my working career to date.  Sure money isn’t everything and I’m not swimming in a pool made by cash (thank you Duck Tales for that image).  Yet I am now in a position to respond to what God has given, by giving right back in the generous manner in which He gave.  Not that I needed the money to do that, but you should know what this responsibility means in that regard.

This entry is a word of thanks to God for His ongoing faithfulness, mercy and loving-kindness to me, providing such a challenging job for me.  I look forward to letting you know more about some of the adventures there as things progress, but as of now I am endeavouring to establish the right godly profile in the organisation and take things from there.  Pray for me as I return to what some consider ‘secular’ work.  For me it is as much mission as the previous job, and I want to now sensitively pursue that in the work in which I do as that title of being ‘work-less’ is further consigned to the tip.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

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