The Pleasure of Good Work
I enjoy my work as a volunteer tutoring an ESL student
through the Madison Literacy Network. The Network, a United Way-funded
organization, is professionally staffed and run. So I don’t have to figure out what text to
use or where to find resources to help my student with her difficulties in
pronunciation, for example. In
retirement, I no longer have the energy or stamina for many of the tasks that I
used to accomplish with ease. Without
exhausting me, however, my two-hour a week commitment uses the skills and
experience I’ve accumulated over the years.
I enjoy my student’s exclaiming with pleasure that the first hour went
so fast that she didn’t notice the time or that others are impressed with the
progress she’s made in slightly over a year.
(She is, of course, is bright and hard-working.) Although we’re supposed to speak English to
one another almost exclusively, from time to time I’ll explain something in
Spanish. That limits her frustration and
it strengthens my Spanish, which I’d otherwise seldom use.
Everything we do, including “work” is a gift from God. What a pleasure it is to be able to do
something well. You might consider what
gifts you have been given and the pleasure of sharing them with others—and then
gives thanks to God.
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