
What was the best job you’ve ever had? This was the question sent to me this past week from Storyworth. My daughter gave me a subscription to Storyworth for Christmas. This package includes weekly story prompts for the recipient to respond and share a story from their life. At the years end we will receive a hardcover book with all the stories collected in a legacy, keepsake compilation.
Each Monday a thought provoking, memory-stirring question pops into my email. What was your dad like when you were a child? What was your first big trip? Write about one of your best days you remember. You have the option each week to choose a different question but so far, I haven’t gone that route. But last week’s question almost became the first switch.
What was the best job you’ve ever had? Surprisingly I found this a difficult question to answer. It would have been easier to find a new question but one thing I have learned on my spiritual journey is when something stirs or jars my spirit, brings me tears, or causes me to pause – I better pay attention. A life lesson will soon be revealed.
So I sat with the question. I felt like I was thrown deep into Rilke’s words: “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
The spiritual practice of questions is powerful. Questions can be an insightful spiritual tool that helps us hear God, stretch and grow and stay alive, not dormant and stale. Looking back I have posted in the past the value of allowing questions to guide us on our faith journey and yet I was once again surprised by this question. So…
- I let the question rest, then rise like leaven dough.
- I revisited past jobs enjoying some memories and naming the sorrows rising from others.
- I remembered what each position taught me and how the people and work shaped me.
This question brought a delightful conversation between my husband and me. He is more of the pessimist, yet he recalled and relished in the joyful memories. Me, the optimistic one, wallowed in dark difficult recollections that still stirred up anxiety and nausea.
He even observed I never considered my roles as wife, mother and grandmother in my search for the answer. We debated the definition of “job” and for a time I felt guilty I didn’t name those parts of me as my favorite but I felt there was more to learn from a different answer,
The true epiphany arrived several days later.
What was the best job I’ve ever had? The one I hold now. My position of Deacon and as a writer. Walking as a companion with others within my church and as a spiritual director and playing and creating with letters and words matches my core calling. This is who God created me to be. A strong sense of puzzle pieces fitting together precisely. All my other jobs were good for that time in my life – but today’s work aligns best with my soul.
An ah-ha moment filled with joy, contentment, and peace. A life-giving awareness I would have lost if I had ran from that question. A gift from God!
What question are you avoiding? Or perhaps this may be an
easier question to ask:
What was the best job you’ve ever had?
Being a mom/wife is the best job I’ve had and the one I always wanted. The best paying job I’ve had was a few weeks I subbed as a Space Camp counselor. The pay was the worst, but the experience was so unique and fun working with the kids who came to Space Camp and trying to stay one step ahead of them in knowledge. 🙂
Space Camp? wow that is amazing, What fun yet helpful too. Key elements in a great job!
jean, i absolutely agree with you.
these are the good old days! we’re taking all we’ve learned along the way and re-imagining ourselves. love these fresh opportunities.
once we stop saying ‘yes’ to everything we discover who we really are and what we’re passionate about.
appreciating the present isn’t it? and being who we are called to be!
In past chapters of my life I was a writer (of Christian curriculum) for awhile, and for a longer time, a teacher. Now I’m back to writing as a blogger, and find great satisfaction in offering encouragement to others. But grandmothering is the most satisfying of all, a role that also includes bestowing lots of encouragement!
I see you as an encourager in all your roles./jobs!!
I love how the answer to this question finally rose to the surface as you patiently gave it time, Jean. You did have me thinking back on all the jobs I’ve had in my life, and I realized that all had their importance and place in that place and time. I do think that my answer would now would be similar to yours – I’m so happy to be a writer, a wife, a grandmother. Just blessed with every day God grants me.
Amen, Martha: “All [our jobs] had their importance and place in that place and time.” Hindsight grants a bit of wisdom, doesn’t it.
It IS an interesting reflective question, Surprised me too. Like Nancy said, hindsights holds lots of wisdom.
Thankyou jean…
Over 30+yrs as a preschool teacher and now punching 77yrs…recent major eye issue….questions are constant companions….but our Precious Jesus had questions all the time…”my God..my God why has thou forsaken me?”…comes to mind but there were many many others…
So many questions if we listen and learn!