THE GIFT OF WORK (4)

Wisdom Nugget :

Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.
                                                                                            - Sam Ewing

Source: Photo Pin

When I was a boy, I felt it was both a duty and a privilege to help my widowed mother make ends meet by finding employment in vacation time, on Saturdays and other times when I did not have to be in school. For quite a while I worked for a Scottish shoemaker, or "cobbler," as he preferred to be called, an Orkney man, named Dan Mackay. He was forthright and his little shop was a real testimony in the neighborhood. The walls were literally covered with Bible texts and pictures, generally taken from old-fashioned Scripture Sheet Almanacs, so that look where one would, he found the Word of God staring him in the face.

On the little counter in front of the bench on which the owner of the shop sat, was a Bible, generally open, and a pile of gospel tracts. No package went out of that shop without a printed message wrapped inside. And whenever opportunity offered, the customers were spoken to kindly and tactfully about the importance of Faith and the blessedness of knowing that the soul was saved. Many came back to ask for more literature or to inquire more particularly as to how they might find peace with God, frequently right in the shoe shop.

It was my chief responsibility to pound leather for shoe soles. A piece of cowhide would be cut to suite, then soaked in water. I had a flat piece of iron over my knees and, with a flat-headed hammer, I pounded these soles until they were hard and dry. It seemed an endless operation to me, and I wearied of it many times.

What made my task worse was the fact that, a block away, there was another shop that I passed going and coming to or from my home, and in it sat a jolly, godless cobbler who gathered the boys of the neighborhood about him and regaled them with lewd tales that made him dreaded by respectable parents as a menace to the community. Yet, somehow, he seemed to thrive and that perhaps to a greater extent than my employer, Mackay. As I looked in his window, I often noticed that he never pounded the soles at all, but took them from the water, nailed them on, damp as they were, and with the water splashing from them as he drove each nail in.

One day I ventured inside, something I had been warned never to do. Timidly, I said, "I notice you put the soles on while still wet. Are they just as good as if they were pounded?" He gave me a wicked leer as he answered, "They come back all the quicker this way, my boy!"

"Feeling I had learned something, I related the instance to my boss and suggested that I was perhaps wasting time in drying out the leather so carefully. Mr. Mackay stopped his work and opened his Bible to the passage that reads, "Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of god."
"Harry," he said, "I do not cobble shoes just for the four bits and six bits (50c or 75c) that I get from my customers. I am doing this for the glory of God. I expect to see every shoe I have ever repaired in a big pile at the judgment seat of Christ, and I do not want the Lord to say to me in that day, 'Dan, this was a poor job. You did not do your best here.' I want Him to be able to say, 'Well done, good and faithful servant.'"
Then he went on to explain that just as some men are called to preach, so he was called to fix shoes, and that only as he did this well would his testimony count for God. It was a lesson I have never been able to forget. Often when I have been tempted to carelessness, and to slipshod effort, I have thought of dear, devoted Dan Mackay, and it has stirred me up to seek to do all as for Him who died to redeem me.

How To Win Over Your Boss

Wisdom nuggets:   "To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labour, to be given a chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy."

Photo source: Source

If you're into bumper-sticker philosophy, you've probably seen the axiom, "I owe, I owe, so off to work I go." For a vast portion of the workforce, that's the best reason they can muster for going to the job each day. According to one poll, only 43 percent of American office workers are satisfied with their jobs. In Japan, the figure dips to 17 percent. In the first century, Christian proletariats had even less reason to be enthusiastic about their work. But Paul gave them a way to grasp a glimpse of glory amid the grind. He wanted them to "adorn the doctrine of God," that is, to show the beauty of their faith in God by how they work.

The truth is nothing endears your boss like your attitude to your work. Chances are you may never find the courage to ever talk to your boss about progress but you have a great opportunity to communicate same by your work ethics.

"Subordinates must always obey their bosses and do their best to please them. They must not talk back or steal, but must show themselves to be entirely trustworthy and good. Then they will make the teaching about the Almighty attractive in every way."

We saw this when Joseph saved the economy of Egypt and fed the whole world in the famine. Pharaoh, his boss, was so impressed that he asked "who is your father? "Your boss will only be interested in your father when your attitude to work speaks well of him. It was Mother Teresa who said "There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the work. This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in - that we do it to the Most High and that's why we try to do it as beautifully as possible."

In September 5, 1994, I read this beautiful passage and saved it ever since. It read: A significant and often overlooked way that we serve Our Maker is in our everyday tasks. Martin Luther understood this when he wrote, "The maid who sweeps her kitchen is doing the will of God just as much as the monk who prays - not because she may sing a hymn as she sweeps but because God loves clean floors. The shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.


If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.

                                                                                                                    - Bill Gates

Dealing With Physical Abuse

Wisdom nuggets: Anyone entrusted with power will abuse it if not also animated with the love of truth and virtue, no matter whether he be a prince, or one of the people.
                                                                                                          - Jean de La Fontaine

 

Source: Photopin

Physical abuse is an act of another party involving contact intended to cause feelings of physical pain, injury, or other physical suffering or bodily harm. Physical abuse is often the most visible form of abuse. This kind of abuse involves beating, hitting, shaking, burning, choking, cutting, throwing, whipping, and other actions that cause physical pain to the victim. Physical abuse will often leave scars or bruises on the body which can be very embarrassing for the victim. This kind of abuse is more common than most people realize. People are being abused in their offices by their bosses, at school by bullies, in the hospitals by health workers, at home by spouses, parents and siblings. Most people physically-abused people keep quiet about their experience and think it's their fault. They hide their bruises and tell lies to cover for their perpetrators. Wives want to remain married for their kids and tell no one about their torture; employees are scared to lose their jobs and keep receiving the torture every day. It's a sad thing really. Some end up killed and only then are their stories revealed.

Here's a true life story as told by Gertrude: "I've been physically struck 3 times at my workplace; once by a cashier and twice by a manager. Yet my store manager did nothing about it. They always talk about me and even to customers calling me names. I want to quit but the pay is good and I really need the money. I want to file a lawsuit but I really don't have much evidence. I'm good at my job, I don't gossip. I don't steal, I try to respect customers and I try not to have non-constructive discussions while on the clock. It's becoming worse daily, I feel very terrible at work and I don't enjoy my work anymore."
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Physical abuse can range from mild actions such as slapping, like Gertrude is being abused at work to severe ones such as the breaking of bones.

Another woman tells her story: "he broke into my house. He was breaking my fingers, to take my daughter out of my arms, that was his way to control me & my other daughter was upstairs. It was late at night and he was going to take her from me because I had taken the children out for dinner, and he didn't know where I was..."

 If you're an employee and you're being slapped by your boss; then he's physically abusing you. You either quit or you file a complaint. Don't be like Gertrude and be miserable at work. It'll start affecting your self-esteem eventually. Your boss has no right to make you feel like that. If you're a wife and you're being abused, run to counsellor or your pastor for help. Don't wait till you end up in a morgue. You can help him get help. Keeping it a secret will not help you neither will it help your perpetuator. If your abuser doesn't get psychological help, then they'll find another victim to abuse.

If you're an abuser, remember that you have an obligation to treat people around you in kindness. Instead of hitting, there are better ways to settle a quarrel. Husbands why hit your wives? Health workers why abuse the patients you swore to care for. As adults why do you abuse the people in your care? Don't forget that in anger, you could do something you'd regret for the rest of your life. You could be locked behind bars & lose your prestige in society.

Prince Pritchett once said, "Change always comes bearing gifts" You'll see the richness change brings if you change. You'd begin to have real relationships with the people you abuse. People will respect you better & you'll become emotionally relaxed. Change always bears gift my friend embrace it & change from your ways.

On Substance Abuse

Wisdom Nugget: Woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may run after strong drink, who tarry late into the evening as wine inflames them"

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"Drugs are merely the most obvious form of addiction in our society. Drug addiction is one of the things that undermines traditional values" - Christopher Lasch

People abuse substances such as alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs for varied and complicated reasons, but it is clear that our society pays a significant cost. "Drug addiction destroys lives, tears apart families and harms society."

The source of this quote is unknown but the message it carries is confirmed in our hospitals and emergency departments both through direct damage to health by substance abuse and its link to physical trauma. Families are also torn apart because one or some members of the family got into drug addiction. Abused substances produce some form of intoxication that alters judgment, perception, attention, or physical control.

Most people start doing drugs because they are in pain or going through something terrible in their homes or at their workplaces. But I wonder how that brings relief. Can you find relief in puking your guts out? Is sleeping in the gutter a relief? Is becoming incoherent a relief? Is getting sexually abused a relief? Can you get relief from lying on a hospital bed or in a morgue? Does intoxicating yourself in the bid to forget not make it worse? You will still become sober and remember everything and then what will happen next, get intoxicated again? You even complicate matters because not only do you have to worry about whatever it is you're going through, you now also have to worry about buying the substance, making sure you have enough stashed and a lot that comes with it. Some other people do drugs just out of pleasure. But what is the pleasure? They become socially withdrawn; as a matter of fact the only people they begin to associate with are abusers like themselves. Their life generally deteriorates; they may lose their jobs, status, prestige, friends, and even family. Where then is the pleasure in any of those?

Vincent said "I started with the weed, then the pills and acid, making cocktails of all sorts of drugs, even overdosing to make the rushes last longer. I took copious amounts of these chemicals every day for as long as two years until I had a bad trip one night and went into toxic psychosis. I prayed and cried for this feeling to go away; I had voices in my head, had the shakes and couldn't leave home for six months. I became very withdrawn and thought everyone was watching me. I couldn't walk in public places. Man! I couldn't even drive. I ended up homeless and on the streets, living and sleeping in a cardboard box, begging and struggling to find ways to get my next meal. I asked myself if this is rock bottom, and I believe that it was. While observing these homeless people I decided that I had had enough. Yes I wanted drugs, but I realized that I could want life more." Vincent had a breakthrough and realized that life was more important to him and decided to live it. He was lucky to have survived the ordeal. Others have had it worse and didn't make it through. But if you're into substance abuse like Vincent was, you can make it through. All you have to do is make up your mind to walk away from it and seek medical help and counseling for withdrawal. Trust me you're better off without it.

As a sage once said, "Woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may run after strong drink, who tarry late into the evening as wine inflames them!" No matter how bad it is, look within, there's something to be happy about, if you find nothing, be happy that you're still alive today and let it motivate you to want to live. Stay away from the substance; do not let it inflame you. Keep your family, friends, loved ones and most importantly keep God close to you and you'll go through anything without having to damage your health or life.

Dealing With Child Neglect

Wisdom Nugget: "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.."

Source: Photopin

Neglect occurs when children are not provided with the basic needs of life. Neglect is a type of maltreatment that refers to the failure of parents or guardians to provide care even though they are financially able or have other means to do so. A child is also considered abandoned when the parent's identity or whereabouts are unknown; the child has been left alone in circumstances where the child suffers serious harm, or the parent has failed to maintain contact with the child or provide reasonable support for a specified period of time.

Neglect is different from other forms of abuse. Where in other forms of abuse a parent or guardian does something he/she is not supposed to do, in neglect the parent or guardian fails to do what he/she is supposed to do. Some of the signs that may indicate a child is being neglected include: untidiness, appearing sickly, frequently ill, looking sad and withdrawn from others. Other signs are: performing poorly in school, feeling out of place among friends and other people.

For more than two years, Willie Robinson's health deteriorated, family members tried to discuss the situation with his parents; Monica Hussing and William Robinson Sr., but the couple never got their son treatment. One relative claimed the glands in his neck swelled to the size of a softball. Hussing's sister said the child suffered for twenty-nine months and the parents did nothing even though they could have done something. The child collapsed and died at the age of 8 from Hodgkin lumphoma (a highly treatable cancer that was not diagnosed until his autopsy). In the days before his death, his mother treated him with cold medicine. Willie had begged to be taken to a doctor and at least eight family members had confronted that they should take the child to the hospital. The parents were sentenced to eight years in prison. (Culled from http://www.newser.com). I know what you're thinking. Unbelievable right? But this is a true life story; happened in Florida. Children are dying everyday out of child neglect in extreme cases, some are having their future marred by the neglidence of their own parents.

These days everyone  is money conscious, so money conscious that children look up to the maids and housekeepers as parents because their parents come back late in the evening and even when they do, lock themselves in their rooms in the name of 'resting'. Some keep their babies in daycare (crèche)  till late in the evening. It's amazing! Most parents don't know what's going on with their children both educationally, psychologically, emotionally and even medically. Some have dying children right under their noses without knowing it. And I ask, who are they working for? If you cannot give your own children attention and make sure they grow up okay, who are you then struggling for? Don't get me wrong I'm not against working hard, I'm not asking you to quit your 8-5 jobs and sit home with your children, I'm simply saying that you make out time for them.

Plan your weekends in such a way that the children are involved. Spend time with them, take them out. Plan vacations at least once a year to get away with your family if you can afford it. Find out about how they're doing in school, look into their school books, and pay attention to their health. I know it's not easy to do all these even with your job but it's your responsibility as parent. You have got to look out for these kids. If you have a baby that requires closer attention, then the parents should reach a compromise and either one of them has to come home early at least until the baby is older and can be left with a nanny for longer periods. We have been  instructed to "train up a child." not "drag on a child" because that's what most of us do. We just drag them on, anyhow without looking back.

  John Fitzgerald Kennedy said "A Child educated wrongly is a child lost". Educate these children rightly, not just about school work but also educate them about everyday living. There are some things a teacher or nanny will not teach your children but only you can.