work

Work.  Dignified work.  That is what I want to talk about. 


If you're here for the Noonday blog train welcome, and thanks for stopping by!  There are so many things I could share about Noonday and have shared before.  I would love to sit down and share with you individual artisan stories.  Stories of hope and redemption.  Stories of lives and whole communities being changed in tangible ways.  I could talk forever about fair trade fashion and how we can use our purchasing power for good to speak out against slave labor.  I could share with you about poverty, injustice and violence, the orphan crisis, adoption and how Noonday is involved with all of these issues.  But today, I want to talk about something that's been on my heart lately and that's been rolling around in my thoughts a lot recently......and that is work.  One of the things that I love about Noonday Collection is that we help provide work for people.  Dignified work.

via Noonday blog

via Noonday blog

Work is good.  We were created to work.  It is a gift to us.  Work is God-given and through it we mirror Him and know Him more.  Many times we don't see it this way.  I shrink back from it.  I see it as a burden.  I try to avoid it.  Well, that is because work has been tainted, and it has been cursed.  We are living in the days after the fall of Adam and Eve.  Our hearts are sinful.  Our motives not always pure.  And work has become a burden.  But just as God brings redemption to us and to the world, He brings redemption to our work.  Work itself is good.  It existed before the fall.  It exists to give us purpose and fulfillment.  Look back in Genesis 2 and you'll find that work, Adam's work, was created before he was.  God was already doing it.  He planted the garden in Eden.  Then He put Adam there to work it.  God was already doing something.  Adam didn't start the work.  He just joined God in what He was already doing, but the work wasn't complete or full until He joined in.  Friends, this is true for us.  God has prepared works in advance for you to do.  He has a specific purpose in this world for you.  Works that you and only you are uniquely gifted and positioned to do.  What might those things be?  Have you ever had a moment where you felt that you were doing something you "were just made to do"?  Well I'm here with a crazy suggestion that maybe it's because you were made for just that!
 

Some of the most fulfilling times in my whole life have been times when I was working hard.  Times of pouring myself out all day long serving and treating patients in other countries.  Working to the point of being physically, spiritually, and emotionally exhausted at the end of the day and loving every minute of it.  Working hard on a creative project that demanded so much of me yet left me feeling more satisfied and alive than ever.  Working hard and getting my hands dirty, but feeling so fulfilled with the finished product.  This is what I'm talking about.  Those times when you feel like you are doing exactly what you were created to do.

via Noonday blog

I have been so convicted of my wrong view of work lately.  Many times I don't see it as a gift.  I see it as a curse.  It's hard to write this post for those reasons.  If you know me you know I complain about my work, and don't see it as an exciting thing I've been called to.  If you work with me you know I don't give myself fully to my work and just go through the motions trying to make it to the end of the day.  I'm not grateful for the job that I have and the opportunity for employment that many people around the world will never have.  I have stood in so many living rooms in the past year and a half advocating for our artisans so that they can have work and speaking about dignified and sustainable jobs while trying to avoid work in my own life.  I want that to change, and I think slowly it is.  At our Noonday Ambassador conference back in January we were presented with this verse one night:

"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

Ephesians 2:10

The funny thing is that this verse was the theme verse of my very first international mission trip ten years ago when I was in physical therapy school.  It shaped my life in huge ways back then as I prepared for my career, and here it is years later shaping and reframing my life again as I think more deeply about work and about my work with Noonday Collection. 

via Noonday blog

via Noonday blog

I've come to love that Noonday is a business and not a charity.  Charity doesn't bring lasting change.  We are about empowerment and not handouts.  We can write a check for someone so that they can send their children to school OR we can provide a job for them so that they can afford to send their own children to school.  We can ship over loads of food and medicine to people living in poverty in other countries OR we can provide jobs so that they have enough money to buy food and medicines.  There is so much more joy and dignity in the latter.  Jobs provide an opportunity for people to take an active role in rising out of poverty.  Work provides a way for our artisans to experience the joy and fulfillment that comes from doing "what they were made to do."  Charity can never do this.  One way that you can provide more work and more jobs for our artisans is by shopping their beautiful handmade items.  The more sales we receive...the more and bigger orders we can place to them....the more work they have....the more people they can hire....the more lives/families/communities are impacted.  So I'm going to help you do just that!  I'm giving away a $50 gift card to Noonday Collection so you can support their work AND a copy of Restless by Jennie Allen so you can learn more about what specific work you may be created to do.  God is using this book right now to help me see how my gifts and passions along with trials and sufferings have prepared me for a unique work.

There are four ways to enter.  Choose one or all four:

1.  Head over to www.lindsaychambers.noondaycollection.com to see our spring/summer collection and let me know your favorite piece.

2. Pin your favorite piece from www.lindsaychambers.noondaycollection.com to one of your Pinterest boards and let me know you did.

3. Share this giveaway on Facebook and then come back here and let me know you did.

4. One free entry to all who follow my blog.  So if you already follow or if you become a follower come back here and let me know.

*Remember one comment for each entry.  So, if you choose to do all four listed above you should comment separately for each entry for a total of 4 comments.

**Giveaway closes Tuesday March 18, 2014 at 9pm Eastern and open to U.S. residents only.

And don't forget to visit Kristen's blog for yesterday's giveaway, and tomorrow head over to Kara's blog for her giveaway.