Worth the Sadness

Life in Latvia was dark. Very dark. They count hours of sunlight per year. Yes, hours, not days of sunlight. It averaged to about 30 sunny days each year. While I lived there teaching seventh and eighth grade third-culture kids, we managed not to have sunshine for five months straight over the winter. Being from Florida, the sunshine state, I got really depressed. SAD—Seasonal Affective Disorder—is real.

I sought ways to brighten the dark days. People had told me about buying a “happy lamp” that emits the same rays as natural sunlight. I wish I had taken their advice. One thing that did help was dying my hair bright red. The color added pep to my locks as it matched my coat and hat.

In late February, we finally saw the sun again. The temperature was -30 degrees Celsius (-22 degrees Fahrenheit) so I wore four layers of clothes. I waddled around like the stay-puff marsh mellow woman. I'm glad I braved the cold. My face lit with joy while playing in the sunshine and soaking in vitamin D. Still, I wondered if my work was worth all the struggle.

One day when I’d hit a real low, a lady from my church back home sent me an email. She started the note with Philippians 1:3-6, “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.”

She explained how God had prompted her to write me to encourage me that He would finish what He’d started. The Lord hadn’t sent me to Latvia to freeze to death and languish in depression, but to use me for His kingdom purposes and glory. My main interactions were teaching American children, not the locals. Yet, my work with those kids enabled their parents to build language skills and a ministry. Also, third-culture kids have a unique problem set to straddle two countries and function as a subset of both. Their education was important for the people they would become.

Satan tries to make us doubt our calling or diminish its importance. Every role God calls us to is significant for building His kingdom. When we surrender our works to the Lord, He creates amazing results that far exceed what we can imagine. Often, I don’t see the fruit of my labor, which I think is to prevent me from swelling with pride. God deserves the glory, not my ego. Life eventually did get brighter, and the Lord brought me through to the spring. Hope and happiness sprouted in my heart and mind once more.

I let the lady from my church know how much her email encouraged me. To her, it was something little, but to me it was monumental. Her note reminded me that as long as I obeyed God, my work, no matter how menial, brought God glory. I needed that light to keep walking through the dark until the dawn appeared. The Lord's work is always worth whatever night we face because His joy comes in the morning.

• Have you ever wondered if your work matters? Know that God has a purpose for all of our lives.
• Whose day can you brighten to remind them of their value to God?