Yesterday was a good day.
My morning started like any other work day.... Out of the house at 8:20am to be down the street and clocking in at Goodwill by 8:30 at the latest. To follow the path that my past short spurts of being your typical, American employed person have taken since getting hired here I have rapidly moved out of the honeymoon stage of any job and have made an impressively quick slide into levels of contempt for my job.
But yesterday morning turned out to be the lowest I have gotten yet.
What started out as a typical day turned into "just one of those days"...
First I thought I lost my keycard when really I was wearing it the whole time.
Next, I had been scheduled to work on a time that I had said long before hand that I wouldn't be able to, so there was a hassle to try and deal with that.
However, I could have dealt with any of these little problems just fine if it weren't for the biggest issue of all... the thing that keeps returning to my mind every little bit as a repetitive, nagging ache:
What in the world was I doing here?
Sure, Goodwill does nice things for the community and is very helpful in supplying jobs for those in need. (As the tagline goes that I hear and/or say constantly throughout the week, "Thank you for changing lives through the power of work!")
Sure, it provides products at a reasonable price to people who can't purchase the same item elsewhere.
But me? I stand in the back room all day with my arms elbow deep in disgusting, often foul smelling clothes that I have to sort through to get to the good stuff we can sell.
I do nothing but sort and hang, and sort and hang, and help to unload and load the truck when it arrives so that I have more textile to sort and hang, and sort and hang... and on and on and on it goes while I watch the clock tick through my 8 hour shift.
That is what kills me.
That I feel like I am wasting the majority of my day doing nothing that any other person in this town couldn't do.
For a girl who longs and dreams to do big things one day,
who's goal is to be a novelist, mentor, and adventurer;
this is torture pure and simple.
And as I stood there sorting an impossible amount of clothing,
listening to the especially bitter drama and gossip going on among my coworkers,
and being told I needed to turn out more racks than any of us hangers knew to be possible with the products we were dealing with,
I reached a particularly low and despairing place.
I looked ahead at the next year of my life before I will be able to begin pursuing a second degree, and saw only sorting and hanging while I lived for my days off.
I just know that if I were of a more impetuous nature
I would have quit my job yesterday.
But then God, in His ever-patient, ever-merciful way intervened.
As I was driving home for lunch a song came on the radio that I had heard many times before and had loved right from the start. But this time the words of that song reached a whole new level in my heart as God used them to tell me something....
The song was "Where I Am Right Now" by Jared Anderson
and here are a few of the lyrics:
God, Your plan is the best
But my heart is a mess
I'm wondering why you have me here
I'm so ready to be moving on
In my head I'm already gone
But Your voice is crystal clear
(chorus)
I am called to be where I am right now
In the middle of the storm but I have no doubt
You are here with me, You are here with me
And I won't give in or second guess
I'm trusting You with every step
Father, You are here with me
Where I am right now, where I am right now, where I am right now (etc.)
God's timing is perfect in every way.
These lyrics shook me from my despair and reminded me that I have not been needlessly placed where I am right now.
God has led me this far, He won't abandon me now.
And you know what?
I remembered that although every ounce within me is straining for the next step in my life, this in between time is not being wasted:
I have been blessed that this job not only covers my bills but is also giving me enough to fund a trip to Ireland next year, as well as hopefully helping towards other trips.
I have found an amazing church and am building a family of wonderful, supporting people within its congregation.
And, most importantly, God is teaching me to hear his voice in ways that I never imagined I would.
I will never stop looking ahead and longing for "tomorrow" when I travel to Ireland and start online studies to hopefully open up doors to jobs that will benefit the things I want to accomplish in life, but for now it is enough to remember that God has me right where He wants me in His plan.
So yesterday turned out to be a pretty good day.
I went back to work after lunch and finished hanging as many racks of textile as a could, ending just a couple racks shy of our "impossible" goal.
Then, when I got home I sewed a couple of pillows that I got the material for a few months back and ended up feeling like I had accomplished something in my few hours off after all.
Assr vísa ykkarr or∂.
(May God guide your words)
Elizabeth Marie Kauffman
