Photo by Rosie Kerr on Unsplash
What makes you anxious? I got off a Zoom call with a small business employer who had to lay off 49 employees this past week because of the shelter in place order. Her business is not considered essential but for 49 employees it certainly is and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.
What astonished me is how grateful she and her team are about this whole situation. Here is someone who may well loose her business one she has built up over years. Nonetheless, she checks on her employees each and every day. She says everyone is pulling together. They are asking one another “do you have enough food?” “do you need somewhere to stay?” and/or “do you need a ride?”
Folks, these are ordinary people working on commission. Yet, with no job in sight, they are not continually focused on what they don’t have but what they do have. This is thankfulness at its best. Yes, they are afflicted and probably severely pressed; yet, they do not loose hope. They have each other.
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed….For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:8-9; 16-18
The CEO and owner closed our conversation by saying, her faith in Jesus has never been more important to her and that we will get through this together. Just a note, the way she cares for her employees has not gone unnoticed as others are reaching out expressing a desire to work for her company once things clear up. Go figure, in a time of doubt and despair, gratitude can inspire and bring hope.
