Forty hours a week, you can find me hand wrapping chocolate in foils, tying bows, counting stickers, and packaging sweet chocolate shapes.
It's tedious and far away from my dream job or even my college major, but I am thankful.
Almost six months ago, my boss asked to see me in his office at the end of the day. Hours later, I fearfully entered his office and closed the door at his request, trying to figure out what I had done wrong and what I would say.
Instead, he offered me a promotion, a small leadership role in my department. The job was almost exactly the same as what I had been doing before, but I would be the coordinator of the room, making sure products were wrapped on time and acting as liaison between different departments we work with directly.
I sat in the chair across from him stunned. Because I am not a leader. I am the one who works behind the scenes. I am the one who forces others to make decisions. I am the one who will avoid confrontation and avoid anything that puts me in the spot light on any level.
Yet I now find myself the wrapping coordinator.
And I picture God sweetly laughing.
The position is small, but it has been a stretch for me. Some days it is easy and I forget I am "in charge". Other days I regret saying yes. A few Mondays ago it was one of those regretful days.
My job is unique in that as long as our hands are busy, we can talk. This is a huge blessing as our tasks can quickly get tedious and boring. But sometimes we can get more caught up in our conversations than our work.
We can all do this, but I have one coworker who tends to do it more often. She is an easygoing and delightful woman who talks with her hands and I noticed as soon as she started working that she would stop wrapping when she got involved in a conversation.
But I said nothing. I hoped that as time passed and she learned more about how we do things it would naturally stop. Mostly, I didn't want to tell her. And she did get better. Mostly.
Which brings me to that one Monday.
We are working at different tables and I ask this woman about a book she had finished. She summarizes the book for me and as she speaks her chair turns around until she is facing me and not the table where she is working. She is so excited about this book, telling me plot and character details.
Then our boss enters the room. And he sees her facing away from her work.
He says little, but he doesn't have to say anything. I see on his face that though he isn't mad, he is annoyed, and has every right to be.
When he leaves we silently go back to our work, and shame and horror settles over me. Some might not be bothered by what happened. We all work hard and do our best there, and what does a loss of maybe three minutes at the most matter?
But it gnaws at me. As the coordinator, it is my job to make sure things like this don't happen. And today, I failed to do my job.
I am quiet the rest of the day brooding in my failure. But I can't focus just on this failure. All of my failures come back into my head, parading in front of me and taunting me. I try so hard to be perfect and it never works.
And I want to laugh at myself. If I was perfect, Jesus wouldn't have had to die! This is so simple and stupid. I have accepted the truth of my sin and Christ's payment for my sin since I was four years old. Yet I live my life trying to be perfect.
Though still sobered by the previous events, I feel peace, and I know what I must do.
First, I write a quick note to my boss since I write better than I can speak. I apologize for what happened, tell him that it was my fault, and that I will try my best to not let it happen again. I slip it onto his desk with other papers.
Then I stay late to talk to this woman when everyone else has gone.
"I have been avoiding telling you something for a while," I begin carefully.
She listens, and I try to gently explain how easily she can lose focus and stop wrapping.
And she is gracious, agreeing that she does that and even tells me to just give her a look the next time that happens. I have been stupidly avoiding this conversation for months for no reason. We talk about it more. We even talk about my leadership position and how I never wanted to be in charge of anything.
Then I see an opening and sense a push.
"But this leadership role has been good for me," I say.
"How so?" she asks. Her eyes find mine.
"This job has helped me see that I try to live my life perfectly. I try to hide my flaws from the world. But in this job, I mess up all the time in tangible ways people outside of my family can see. And it is so stupid since the foundation of my faith is that I am not perfect and I'm a sinner, so Jesus died on the cross for my sin."
We don't linger on the subject, but this is the most I have ever been able to share the gospel with her. All because I messed up.
And this is how God uses my brokenness for His glory.
