Joy! Joy is the arrival of a new member of staff who is three months overdue.
Joy is a sleeping baby nestled in your arms. Joy is an unexpected afternoon nap (to clarify, after children any afternoon nap is unexpected). Joy is a meal I did not cook. Joy is a full night’s sleep. Joy is dancing and not caring who is watching. Joy can even be red wine and dark chocolate. It’s the simple things.
That said, my joy is not dependent on my circumstances or on things or even people.
Lately I have been tired (even before kids I was a bit of a ‘loskop’, so you can imagine).
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Just yesterday Piet comes to me with a perplexed look on his face. “How did this get in the fridge,” he asks, holding out a bright orange nappy sack, clearly full. “Um, did one of the boys not put it there?” I stumble, surely it must have been them. “It was on the top shelf,” he adds with a laugh, clearly implying that it must have been me! I was quite indignant for a while, but when no other explanation was forthcoming I had to concede that it possibly may have been me. I have been a little distracted of late, burning the candle at both ends. Interrupted sleep doesn’t help either. Being a mom and a business owner is no mean feat. In fact, the standard answer to ‘how are you?’ when I speak with other moms is either “busy” or “tired” or both. It’s a common problem. If I have time to apply make-up in the morning I can artfully conceal the dark rings under my eyes. If not, oh well, hello world here I am, warts and all.
Over the past four years I have discovered the meaning of exhaustion to new previously unexplored levels thanks to my dear babies, Daniel, Ruben and the Courier. Being short staffed in the editorial department these past three months was particularly tricky. Finding good staff is just plain difficult. And from what I hear, other business owners can commiserate.
I must have waded through hundreds of CVs before even finding a handful of ‘maybes’.
Now if you are applying for a job as a journalist and you cannot find your way around a CV without filling it with grammatical errors then you do not pass go, nor do you collect R200 and your CV goes directly into the bin.
The level of education that comes with a university degree right now is truly terrifying. These are college graduates who cannot use spell check on the most important document they own.
Without a doubt, certain universities are simply churning out low-quality graduates that nobody wants to hire. I feel for these kids.
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They probably have little idea that the piece of paper they earned after three or four years is worth so little. Still, there are gems out there, you just have to find them and trust God with the process.
My interviewing skills have certainly been honed in the process and that can only happen with practice. And boy, have I been stretched. But what has come out of it has been beautiful. Why? Because when that great candidate turns down the job offer, when the baby cries all night and dinner is burnt and I have no idea how I could possibly get to everything on my ‘to do list’, that is when Jesus is my joy supreme.
You only get to surrender completely when you get to the end of yourself. And on the other side of surrender is perfect joy, perfect peace.
***
A man gets a telephone call from a doctor. The doctor says: “About this medical test I did on you, I have some good news and some bad news.” The man asks for the good news first.
“The good news is that you have 24 hours to live”, says the doctor.
The man, incredulously: “If that is the good news, then what is the bad news?”
“I couldn’t reach you on the phone yesterday.”
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