Some of the People I Meet Along the Way

This post is a little different. That photo above is of Sarah. She's a housekeeper at the hospital on my dad's floor. The first day we arrived at the floor, Sarah came in and welcomed us to the floor. She let us know that she was our housekeeper, and that if we needed anything, to please call the housekeeping number.

I wanted to write about Sarah (and hopefully I'll be able to share a couple of other people's stories in the future) simply because of the way she goes about her work, and her care for the patients at the hospital.

Yesterday, there were a couple of other housekeepers on our floor. We spilled some milk (literally) and made a mess in the floor. Our nurse told us she would get hold of housekeeping to get it cleaned up. It was 30-45 minutes later that it was cleaned up but we just figured the housekeepers were busy. I was totally prepared to clean it myself, but our nurse told us we had enough to deal with, and that they had housekeeping there to help us if we needed anything.

Well, I guess one of the nurses talked to Sarah today about the lack of promptness of the housekeeping folks yesterday. Sarah came in first thing in the morning, and apologized to us on behalf of her staff. She told us that our experience yesterday was not what she wanted us to have. She was extremely humble and truly sorry that we didn't have top notch service. The irony is that we really just thought folks were busy.

She came back in a couple of times looking for a good opportunity to mop and clean Dad's room. It was very clear to me that she saw her job as more than a paycheck, so I talked to her about it. I told her that it was extremely rare that people in any job took their work so seriously, and looked at it as an opportunity to serve others instead of as a means to an end.

She told me that she sought to do her work "as unto the LORD" and that was why she took it so seriously. She believed that God deserves our best, and she wasn't looking for accolades here, but rather she was looking to hear Him say "Well done, you good and faithful servant" when she one day meets her Maker.

What a perspective! Wouldn't be something if EVERYONE who called on the name of Jesus saw their work as more than a means to a paycheck? What would be different about what you do if you were working for the Creator of the universe instead of working for your earthly employer? Would your perspective change? What about the quality of your work?

Who knows, maybe if more people saw men and women of faith pursuing their vocation with this kind of passion and tenacity, they would look more highly on the faith that produces such saints.