Encouragement
My office is really a spare bedroom in my house. It is way too small for the type of work area that I need so I find myself constantly moving things around to accommodate my needs. I have to move the shrink-wrap machine off of the table top cutter in order to cut down mat board. I often use my mat cutting table for packing up orders and attaching labels for shipping so the mat cutter goes in a corner only to have to be lugged back to the table and set up for the next project.
It is exhausting and there are days that I become so frustrated by the process that I seriously consider closing up shop and just going out and getting a job where my work day can be pre-planned by someone else. I just have to show up, tick off the boxes, go home at the end of the day, collect a paycheck. What a breeze.
Then, the phone call comes…the call from someone that I have never spoken to before that reaches out and reminds me why this “little shop” and the Podesta designs matter. She had been given the “Imagine” years ago after the sudden death of her infant. Her daughter would have been 40 the day she called me. She told me that in her grief she wanted to crawl into her bed and never get back out of it, but she had another young child to care for so that wasn’t a possibility. She also said it was a while until she was able to really look at the design she had been given, because she was angry at God for taking her child and she did not want to be comforted.
When she did, she came to the last line of the text and felt a huge flood of relief wash over her. Her little girl was holding God’s hand. She was safe and she was home and one day they would be together again. That revelation did not put an end to her grief, it never ends, she told me, but for many days she would read it first thing in the morning and it would help her to set the grief aside for a while so she could take care of her family and focus a little on the happy memories.
That was it. She had seen that Michael had passed away the morning of that call, so she sought out my contact information and just wanted to encourage me to continue sharing the work. I thanked her and told her that I had been having a bit of a rough day up until her phone call. I needed to hear from her. I think the message was sent to me that day because what I am doing is important. It was the encouragement I needed to keep this little shop going.
