Grandaddy Williams will be 82 in October and he still works as an autobody man. Work brings him great purpose and delight. I did not inherit that gene. Being a mother of five children means I work all day every day, but I have to fight pretty hard for the joy amidst the mundane.
This morning, while my mind was still fuzzy and my eyes were still closed, a very clear thought entered my mind: this must be what work in Heaven will be like someday. The this is Josephine.
We know work was cursed in Eden and we know that Jesus reversed the curse, but that reversal hasn't fully been realized. We feel the weight of the curse hanging around pretty much all the time. It's a rare and noteworthy day when the curse doesn't sneak up in some capacity with regard to work. It has always been extremely difficult for someone like me, who can lean lazy if I'm being honest, to even begin to comprehend uncursed work.
Until now. My new friend Dare Harcourt and I have been collaborating for about six weeks on a concept that should, if all goes well, be particularly delightful for God and children, which is the absolute best audience combination! For me, words were the contribution. For Dare, art was her gift to the project. For both of us, it sounded like sweet music playing in the air every time we talked.
This must be, it just must be, what work will be like in Heaven! My best God-given gifts and talents coming together with someone else's best God-given gifts and talents to create something of beauty and significance that glorifies our Father and points others to praise his name. All of that will happen with an effervescence that we just can't quite grasp here and now.
There's this golden heartbeat running through the whole thing. God gave me the idea and the words to get the job going. God gave Dare the idea and the images to get the art done. The Holy Spirit translated my word concepts to Dare in vibrant colors and lines and images. We danced around in eternal concepts and used rhythm and contour to make scriptural truths accessible to the most elementary minds. These are the minds still young enough to effortlessly grasp the radical beauty of God as it has been revealed through his Word. And now we are almost to the "job well done" part that Grandaddy finds so alluring.
This project has been so delightful that I don't want to insult it by calling it work, but then again, maybe this project is redefining what work is to me. Raking the yard, scrubbing the toilets, scraping the plates, and folding the laundry all have their sacred, vital place and Jesus can be found in all of those things. But this collaboration, this creation, this combination of minds to create something we can lay down at his feet...this is a piece of something yet to be, and maybe God has gifted it to me to brighten up the endless foot-washing. He knows my humanity.
I'm grateful. I hope he gives me more...work. Grandaddy will be thrilled!