By Davalynn Spencer @davalynnspencer
I prefer to shop for groceries early in the morning. That doesn’t mean I always make it. I just prefer it. There are fewer people and more available shopping carts. Shelves are recently stocked, and the nerves of checkers and staff are not yet worn down to the nubbins.
One morning as I stood in line for the “fast” lane, I took more than just a cursory notice of the woman at the bank of self-checkout machines.
She hovered there to help do-it-yourselfers like me who often don’t do it the way the machine thinks we should. I learned that she has worked 22 years for that store—ever since she first landed the job as an 18-year-old high school graduate.
I saw her in a different light that day. She, and others like her, faithfully served the community. Her job mattered to me. It mattered to a lot of people.
And then I realized that my job does too. It’s my job to give people something to relax with when they come home in the evening from a hard day on their feet.
It’s my job to write an entertaining but encouraging story into which they can escape for a while and then return to their world uplifted.
It’s my job to write a good book they will enjoy.
Observing readers in their real world helped me realize I could be a blessing to them doing my job as they are a blessing to me doing theirs.
It is a circle of service, one to another.
We all fit somewhere in that circle. Your job matters, whether you are working in the grocery store, teaching school, or caring for the aged and ill.
Even retirement is a job. Where are you helping and what are you doing that you didn’t have time for before? Who are you listening to or praying with?
Some of us may have unexpected callings we don’t see as important. Like elbows. Have you ever considered how people would eat without them?*
If you’re not sure where you fit in the circle of service, ask God to show you. He will.
There are different kinds of service,
but we serve the same Lord.
God works in different ways,
but it is the same God
who does the work in all of us.
1 Corinthians 12:5-6
~
*For further study, see 1 Corinthians 12:12-27
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“Ranger Graham says his father may have known one of your relations.” Helen set a plate of gingersnaps in the center of the table and took her place at the end.
“Pop was a ranger too,” Graham offered. “Worked with Haskell Jacobs up in Denver before Jacobs retired down here in Cañon City. He said Haskell married a gal from around here—Martha Stanton. You heard of her?”
Hugh thumbed through family history. It’d been a while since he’d thought of his pa’s sister, Martha Hutton Stanton. “That’s right. Martha had been widowed and later married a ranger by the name of Jacobs.”
“Did she have a brother?”
“That she did. Whit Hutton, my pa.” Hugh held the ranger’s regard, amazed at the tight circle sometimes found in unexpected connections.
“Well, I’ll be.” Helen shook her head and sipped her coffee.
“You’re almost family,” Mary said.
Hugh took her hand and also his first risk with his bride-to-be. But if he knew her like he thought he did, she’d agree to what he was about to tell the ranger.
“Maybe you can stay for the wedding.”
Helen choked on her coffee and grabbed her apron.
Graham grinned.
And Mary turned her hand over and linked her fingers with Hugh’s.
“She’s gonna do it!”
Every head turned for the screen door, where Kip and his brothers stood with their faces pressed against it.
“She’s gonna marry us!” ~Hope Is Built
Inspirational Western Romance – where the hero is heroic.
#lovingthecowboy
(c) 2024 Davalynn Spencer, all rights reserved.
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