Shipps Corner Pet Spa and Resort, GIRL.

      As stated in a previous post, I had been searching and searching for a job and trusting that the Lord had a job already set aside for me and He was just waiting for me to walk into it. Well, after working at Shipps Corner Pet Spa and Resort, I can look back on that and say with full confidence that that is exactly what happened.

      Shipps Corner is a dog kennel that boards dogs while their owners go on vacation. Shipps also offers grooming, therapy swims, and yes, doggie daycare, where the owners can drop the dogs off in the morning when they go to work and pick the dogs up on their way back home from work. I LOVED working here. The work itself was a bit physically demanding and not very pleasant as you can imagine, but the people that I worked with were so awesome! My coworkers were one of the sole reasons I got up at 6 a.m. every morning to go pick up dog poop and get peed on. These people were so fun to work with and were pretty vulnerable with me with their lives, whenever we did get a chance to talk. At the end of the summer they weren’t just coworkers, they were friends, cheesy, I know, but true. The times I got to spend working with them and hanging out with them were just so genuine and real and SO much fun! I got to share life with them, and they shared life with me. It was so cool to get to know them and see where they are at on their journey through life.

       With being in a community that is constantly rooted in Christ, it was hard to realize what was going on outside of the “fortress”. There was a speaker who came and spoke at one of our meetings one night and he taught on fortress theology. Fortress theology, in a nutshell, is when Christians sometimes get into this comfortable mindset and way of life where they are okay with just hanging out with others Christians and not delving into the brokenness and realness of this world. They put themselves in this “holy huddle”, and don’t reach out to other non-believers and go where they go. But that is not what the Lord calls us to do. Those places are exactly where you would see Jesus hanging out. He went to the parties, and those dark places. He wasn’t just hanging around and content in his community of followers. He reached out to the lowest of the society. That is what we are called to do. We are called to go out of our fortress to go where we are not comfortable and love on people. It is when we are out of our comfort zone that we see the Lord do the most work in us. Yes, it is important to be in community and grow in the body of Christ, but we are also called to reach out to others and share the good news of the gospel with them, so that they may know the grace and love of our Heavenly Father.

        I am so thankful for the relationships that I was able to build with my coworkers and I pray that they will continue to grow and that the Lord will continue to use me as a light in their lives, even though I am home and no longer working there.