I read an article interviewing Gallup CEO Jim Clifton about the job market the other day. One thought from the article has stuck in my head: that polls show people all over the world say they want good jobs- not just jobs that pay the bills. We modern folks want jobs that make an impact, positively influence society, and give us a sense of hope and purpose.
This brought to mind what I read to the kids last summer.
Over the course of June, July, and August I read all the Little House books out loud to my children. I hadn’t read them since the fifth grade, when my reading teacher Mrs. Dunn assigned them.
Reading them as an adult, I understood things a little differently. While Laura as a child was very much who I knew her to be twenty-five years ago, I understood her better as a woman. I also understood her mother, Caroline in a different way.
There was a sadness I never caught onto before.
As Laura matures in the series, there are glimpses she gives of her mother that I could relate to as a wife who has followed her husband’s dreams, sometimes at the cost of her own. It is possible Caroline never wanted to leave their home in the big woods from the very beginning. She certainly struggles when the family suffers greatly with illness and failure on homesteads in most of the books. Laura’s tale slowly lets on that the thrill of moving west is not for the weak of heart.
By the time we read the last book about Laura’s first four years of marriage, the sadness seemed to have penetrated even Laura’s spirited soul. She loses a home and a baby, and she and Almanzo struggle financially.
Laura and her family had their fill of burnt toast. Making a home and helping to settle America were their purpose and hope. They seemed to chase it like a shadow on the hills. Much like all of us today, they wanted their life to matter and for it to be good in that intangible way only the heart can know.
One of the benefits of reading literature that was not written in the modern age is that you find out there is a great deal of wisdom in the old saying, ‘The more things change, the more they seem to stay the same”.
Laura’s parents stop moving west eventually. They stay so that they can be close to Mary, Laura’s sister. They stay because Ma wants to be somewhere that there is a town and a school. They stay and embrace the place they find themselves in, and call it home. I think Laura’s parents, Caroline and Charles, kind of meet in the middle eventually. They live in the west for him, and settle down for her.
Compromise is probably one of the hardest lessons to learn about growing up. In marriage and family, we all get the chance to learn to take a little less of what only makes us happy and seek to make those around us happy. If we will embrace the chance, our childhood hopes of having our own dreams come true can turn into the mature hope that we can help the dreams of others come true.
Instead of looking for a good life for ourselves, maybe what we really want is to use our lives for the good of those around us.
Living focused on others makes life good even when the days are difficult. Knowing God has your ultimate good at the center of all life’s circumstances makes that surrendered life possible.
An easy life can be a horrible nightmare. A difficult life can be a dream come true. The difference between the two is what Jim Clifton says we all want: hope and purpose. But it is not a job by itself that can provide true hope and true purpose. Only God can do that. Thankfully, there is an endless amount of both in Jesus.
And that is very, very good news for the world.
It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.
Ephesians 1:11-12 (the Message)
Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.
James 3:13 (NIV)