Finding Real Value by Dr. Juan Harrison

Finding Real Value

As a young man living on the Canadian border in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I got the opportunity to work as a counselor for the Billy Graham Ministries.  I was working as a teacher/coach in middle school during the week.  Weekends found me helping my pastor build a new church building on a nearby mountain.  Years working on construction projects, including serving as the sheetrock foreman as we built the BellMoore/Glen Haven Apartments when I was 18 helped me become a jack of all trades and master of none.  Years later back home again I got to help build our high school and civic center and other buildings in summers and any free time I had available.

What I learned early in life is that there is a world of opportunities out there begging someone to jump in and lend a hand.  One time I thought I counted forty or more part-time jobs I had over the years in high school, college, and in my work career.  I helped electricians, general contractors, upholstery, seismograph, snack bars, food service, catering, librarian, income tax preparer, night shift bicycle assembler at Howards Discount, sawmill, lawn care owner, teacher/coach/administrator in public school, college instructor, military officer, youth pastor, visitation pastor, feed mill employee, farm hand, dormitory supervisor, ceiling fan installer, greeting card salesman, welder, fuel engineer for Texas Utilities, just to name the jobs I could remember.

I list all these experiences, not to show what all I’ve been blessed to do.  I want you to imagine how many people here in America and overseas I’ve had the opportunity to be involved with in their lives.  I learned to work with all races and nationalities.  I saw dignity in work and people demonstrating all kinds of skills as they fed their families and tried to hold their lives together.  I learned to value what a person could do, not what they couldn’t.

All work is good.  It refines us and defines us.  It’s a part of our very being.  It gives us a feeling of satisfaction and pride when we give it our all.  It helped our nation become the jewel of the world.  Our country loses its glow as work becomes something to avoid, something no longer to be valued.

There ain’t no free money.  Everything has a cost.  We may think getting free money is cool, but in truth, it doesn’t have nearly the value of money we’ve earned.  Nothing replaces the feeling of knowing you put in a good day’s work for a good day’s pay.

By Dr. Juan Harrison