When I entered the work force at the age of 5 or 6, my first job was not a very high-paying position — but I learned valuable lessons. Having moved to a small farm along with the rest of my family, just outside of Madisonville, Kentucky, when I was 4 years old, I had already experienced an adjustment in my lifestyle. My Playl grandmother, “Mama Playl,” had passed away a week after my fourth birthday. Not long after the move, my Johnson grandmother came to live with us. I just called her “Grandmother.”
Mother worked for my dad at his business in town, so Grandmother helped out with the boys — my brother and me. Our house was pretty old, as were the other buildings on the little farm. Daddy created a driveway which circled the house, leaving the area between the driveway and our humble domicile for the designated lawn.
Mother had always wanted a lawn of her own. I suppose this was in order to provide grass for her boys to mow — to keep them out of trouble. But there was no grass. There was only bare, compacted dirt, covered with sandstone pebbles. The rocky soil presented both a problem and a couple of opportunities. Grandmother recognized the opportunity, and her solution led to my first paying job.
People are also reading…
Grandmother presented a gallon bucket and a generous offer to pay me a nickel for each bucket I filled with rocks from the yard. We could then add the bucket of sandstone pebbles to the driveway that was only sparsely covered with limestone gravel. What a plan! Prepare the yard to sow grass, add needed rocks to the driveway, and fill my pockets with nickels.
We all know that a nickel was worth more back then. But did you know that a gallon bucket was much larger in those days? Also, sandstone pebbles in the Playl yard of yesteryear were very small, especially after the larger ones were chosen for the first bucket full.
When Adam and Eve were evicted from the Garden of Eden, the Bible says part of the consequences of their disobedience was that the ground would be cursed, and weeds and thorns would make their labor more toilsome. As a towheaded, tanned child in that yard, I thought I could empathize with that first family.
Finally, with what I thought was a full bucket, I reported to Grandmother, expecting the first nickel I ever earned.
“Not so fast,” she said. “That bucket isn’t full.”
With a sigh of disappointment I continued my effort. When I returned, the pebbles were level with the top of the can, but again I returned with no money. This time, following instructions, I piled rocks on the top until no more could round out my load.
Handing me a shiny nickel she said, with a smile, “That’s better! A job worth doing is worth doing right! Always give a full day’s work for a day’s pay!”
All day! I hadn’t figured on working all day. But after emptying the bucket in the driveway, I started filling it again, working for that second nickel. That day, I learned lessons worth more than a wheelbarrow full of nickels.
I learned that work is a blessing, not a curse; in Genesis, it was the ground, not the privilege to work, that was cursed. And the most important lesson: Don’t quit until the job is finished!
Jesus reported to His Father, “I have FINISHED the work You gave me to do.” (John 17)
My plan is to keep working — writing, preaching, teaching, yardwork or something — as long as God allows me to. How about you?