Stress in the Work Place
Stress in the work place. Ladies, who needs it?? Well, the Lord is using my job as a Refiner’s Fire to bring out the bad in me so that I can surrender that part of myself to him to place into the mighty furnace. Proverbs 25:4 (NIV) says, “Remove the dross from the silver, and out comes material for the silversmith.” Let me tell you, ladies, at the rate things have been going, I’m providing the Silversmith with enough material to make 5 place settings per week! If you’re a boss, you have employees who bring out the worst in you and make you so nervous, your insides shake like gelatin. If you’re not a boss, your co-workers daily leave you wondering if Satan is running the work place. The work place is a playground for Satan. It’s also a ripe mission field and the Refiner’s Furnace. Daily I pray for strength for the Lord to get me through it all. Weekly I hear the same thing from my brothers and sisters-in-Christ at church. We’re even planning a Bible study on stress in the work place. How do we deal with it all? When we finally lose our tempers, causing us to ask ourselves, “Was that really me?”, how do we move on? How do we apologize to the dishonest employee who knows every trick in the book (and I do not mean the Bible!) and uses it to his or her advantage? Jesus says that we are to forgive people, not seven times, but “seventy-seven times.” (Matthew 18:21-22) Okay, so we’re forgiving seventy-seven hundred times a day, pulling at our hair and praying nonstop from clock-in to clock-out (I’m with you, sisters! Let’s pray for each other, too!). What else can we do to deal with it all? Well, I’m working really hard on that right now. I’ve been playing “quiet” CDs like “The Songs and Sounds of the Humpback Whale” (Take me away, Moby Dick, take me away!), dolphins that actually sound like my cats, “Bach For Book Lovers”, other adagio-type music, etc.; when anyone sees me out walking when it’s not my usual break times, that means I’m angry. I’ve also discovered another great way of dealing with all the stress! Friday I took my son’s harmonica to work. After actually losing my temper at one point, (which makes you feel terrible on top of everything else), I whipped out the harmonica and began playing harder than Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Bruce Willis all rolled into one. Let me tell you, I felt great in no time flat! I don’t know if it’s all that inhaling and exhaling until you nearly hyperventilate or just the fact that music and playing music is so relaxing, but it made me feel really good. In fact, I continued playing and playing that thing and even slipped out the side door to entertain the squirrels! The good thing about a harmonica is the fact that it’s pocket-size, and you can take it with you anywhere. I wouldn’t recommend playing it anywhere—-aw, go ahead! Let’s see if we can all learn “Amazing Grace” on harmonica! Humpback whales and harmonicas aside, dear sisters—-each day at work let’s pray and make music in our hearts and give it all up to the Lord so that He can burn away the dross that our employees and co-workers bring out of us each day. May God bless you in your work place!
