Back to the Grind?

First, my thanks to everyone who made homecoming week enjoyable last week—to Maddie and our House Council for organizing fun dress down days, to our cheerleaders for our pep rally, for our football team, for a very competitive game in our first ever varsity game, to Coach Knapstein for all the preparations for the week,  to Mrs. Andrews and all those who helped plan, set up and clean up after the dance. All in all, it was a very good week.

So here we are on Monday, the beginning of the week AFTER homecoming--“back to the grind” we may be tempted to think. But I’m reminded of the story of two bricklayers in medieval France who worked alongside each other. One bricklayer was a miserable cuss, always complaining about how boring and mind-numbingly dull his job was, “brick after brick, day after day, the same dang thing.” The second brick layer was the opposite. He was cheerful as he worked, smiling, often whistling happy tunes. After watching  him for several months, the foreman became curious, so he asked the second brick layer why he was so happy all the time. The brick layer looked up, a little surprised, stepped back from his work, pointed at the structure they were building, and said: "I'm doing a great thing,” he said, “I am part of building a cathedral!"

I think as we face the routine parts of our lives—for you, the classwork, the homework, the writing of papers, maybe the drudgery of athletic practice in the hot, humid afternoons of coastal Alabama—we’re often tempted to see things from the perspective of the first brick layer: the same thing, over and over. It’s easy for us to lose the big picture. But it’s worth remembering that you, too, are building cathedrals. No, not the literally building. But yes, the cathedrals of your lives, places where God resides, sanctuaries. If you work hard, you will one day succeed in college, you will become a good husband or wife, a good father or mother, a person of faith, a disciple of Jesus Christ. And if we take that big picture view, like the second bricklayer, I think it will help us be grateful for our work here, for this school, for our teachers, for our friends, for the challenges that stretch us to become better students, better friends, better sons and daughters. 

So my prayer for you is that God gives you grit and vision: grit to work through the "grind," but vision to see this is all part of  "the process," as Coach Saban likes to emphasize, the process by which God is creating you to be the person he wants you to be, which will ultimately lead you to a happy, fulfilling life. 

The first quarter ends in 18 days. Work hard!