Your Work Matters. But Don’t Deify It.

While my childhood friends spent their Christmas breaks relaxing or watching television or spending time with my other friends, I was forced to wake up at an obscenely early hour, put on several layers of warm clothing, and will myself out into the world.

My father, for reasons that were mysterious to me in my teenage years, thought it important for me to work with him in his plumbing business. I worked with Dad on almost every school break and most summers, installing copper water lines, plastic drainage piping, and steel gas lines in new homes. Though I knew early on that, unlike Dad, I wasn’t especially gifted to work in construction, I got pretty good at plumbing houses. But more important than the opportunity to earn money were the lessons I learned about hard work and Christian calling. These lessons didn’t occur to me until well after I stopped working for my father and began finding my way in my own career.

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