Why a pink shovel? What’s so special about a pink sand shovel?
Those are the same questions I usually got from my middle school students several months into the school year. They never noticed that shovel hanging on my wall (and I never placed it in a place of their prominence but always mine), and when they did, it gave me a great opportunity to share some scripture with them.
When I graduated from college (at the age of 41), there were no teaching jobs in my field where I lived. My first job was several hours (and hundreds of miles) away from my family. When I moved back at the end of the school year, there still were no jobs, but I became a substitute teacher with hopes that I would find a position. The next year, I did find a position, but I was told after the first semester that I would not have a job for the following year. It devastated me and the teacher who was hired at the same time. She was told the same thing.
One day, the other teacher came to my room to share with me a sermon she heard on the radio. The take away from this sermon was that God doesn’t call for us to fill the ditch. We have to just dig the ditch. For context, Israel and Judah were off to take care of their mutual enemy (the Moabites), but while in the desert, they ran out of water. Once they brought in the prophet Elisha, he told them that God said to dig ditches all in the land. The next morning, the ditches were filled with water. The Moabites saw the reflection of the water, but it was red, and they thought it was blood. They assumed Israel and Judah had slaughtered one another, and they went out to them to plunder what was left, but they walked into a trap. Israel and Judah came out successful. They didn’t even have to go to their enemy. God delivered not only water but also their enemy.
After my coworker shared that sermon from 2Kings chapter 3, I kept the shovel hanging in my classroom. Where God called me, the shovel went. It was a reminder that God was going to deliver. He would do the hard work, and I just needed to be obedient to do what I was called to do: teach.
Teaching wasn’t just delivering content. It was about showing my students Christ’s love. I wanted to go back to school to become a teacher for several reasons. The first reason was that I was a natural born teacher. The second is that I saw so many students who needed to see what God’s grace and mercy looked like. I was just like them, and a teacher showed me that, too. I saw too many students who were in need. They needed the patience that I could give.
In 2024, my health was feeling the strain of having taken care of my son and my grandchildren after his accident. To repay me, he purchased me a home. It was in need of repairs, but I could handle that in the long run, plus he said that I could build the sewing room of my dreams. That’s all he really needed to say.
This was also a good opportunity for me to rebrand myself. I had a business that I ran that was similar, but beneath this business was several smaller ones. Because of this huge umbrella, I wanted something that was just me. Something that combined what I wanted to do: share myself and my talents. You see, I love to write, I love to sew, and I love to teach. This would allow me to do all of that, but I wanted it to be separate from the other individual businesses. This, after all, wasn’t a combined effort. This was all mine.
One morning, I sat and struggled with what I should do. I had prayed about my direction, and asked God to lead me in the direction He wanted. Then I turned and looked at the wall in my office. When I left my teaching position where I was to move, I put that shovel up in my office. It was to be a reminder while I looked for a job that I couldn’t find. As I sat there staring at that pink shovel, I instantly knew what I should do next. I had my next steps, my new name, and my purpose. I stopped, pulled out my planner, and jotted down all the things I needed to do.
The next is history.
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