“Jack of all trades”

I remember when I first heard the expression “Jack of all trades”. I’m pretty sure I didn’t know what it meant, but I guess I thought it was a cut down of sorts. Then I figured out it referred to a person who is sort of good at lots of different things. And that can’t be bad, right?

As I grew older and started trying to make decisions about what I’d do with my life…looking for that niche that would be mine…my understanding of that phrase changed. Being a Jack of all trades can’t possibly be good thing. There’s no major for that! It’s not in any of the university catalogues! “Excuse me, Mr. Advisor?”

So I did what many college freshmen (and sophomores and even a few seniors) do. I took a ridiculously wide variety of courses trying to find that perfect job that I knew I would want to do for the rest of my life. I finally did graduate with a major and a minor, but after of few years of dead end jobs in my area, I wasn’t so sure I’d made the right decision.

As more time passed, I grew older, got married, and life changed. I realized that maybe I hadn’t yet found my place. My role. I returned to school—twice. Received more from my education the second and third times around than I had the first, and set out, yet again, to find exactly where I would fit into this career-driven society of which I had suddenly become a part.

Life rolled on pretty smoothly for quite some time. I thought I had finally made a good decision about my future and my career, when God threw me a curve ball. A baby. After eight years of marriage, seven and a half years of college, and five years on the job, the Big Man decided I needed more of a challenge.

So, as the story goes, I worked until about 10 a.m. on the morning of October 20, when the hospital called and said they had an available bed with my name on it. (We were all about “planning the birth”. I’d had enough surprises.)

To make a long story short, our oldest child was brought into the world on a Wednesday. 5:04 p.m. Seventy-three years to the day after the birth of the great Mickey Mantle. The very day the Red Sox beat the Yankees in game seven of the ALCS and went on to win that year’s World Series, finally ending the “Curse of the Bambino”. So much for no more surprises.

A couple days later, we left the hospital and I found out that while life did go on, it was as far from normal as it had ever been. Being a Jack of all trades might just come in handy where parenting is concerned. See, nothing I’d learned in seven and a half years of college had prepared me for this incredibly challenging job. And the irony of it all was that in 10 short weeks I’d have to leave this new life and go back to the one I had actually prepared for. I was needed at work.

I muddled through the next semester, counting down the days until summer break when I could finally be at home with our now seven month old son. It seems only yesterday he was cruising in that stroller and enjoying his very first Yankees’ game.

Life was suddenly as it should be, it seemed to me. There was something all too natural about spending every day with my child, watching him learn and grow and change with every moment. Maybe this was what I’d been looking for.

Summer passed all too quickly, and as I headed back to the office to prepare for a new school year, I was caught off guard at what a sick sense of humor (and incredibly poor timing) our Maker really has. But it was true. I was pregnant.

With a 10 month old at home, it appeared in seven short months I’d be baring it all once again, and how in the world would I ever be a parent to a newborn and a 17 month old while maintaining my suddenly-seemingly inconsequential career? My how quickly life can change.

And on yet another Wednesday, March 22, at 5:43 p.m. our second son and the one about whom I have been quoted to say that “he saved my life and will probably be the cause of my death” was born. It wasn’t until two days and a hateful call from the lady in the record’s department later that we finally agreed on his name: Brisco Berra. (Long live the greatest Yankee catcher ever, Amen.)

Why all the nostalgia? I don’t know. Maybe it’s just this time of year. Parents saying goodbye to their high schoolers as they prepare to go off into the world. Middle school kids breaking into their fast and frenzied high school days. Kindergartners, all eyes on them, walking across a stage that must seem to them like walking the plank on Hook’s infamous pirate ship. (Or maybe that’s just my kid’s perspective.)

It’s an emotional time for most. Will my kid find his passion? Will he find his niche? Or will he be a Jack of all trades, master of none?

As I prepare to watch our son pass his first educational milestone, my biggest wish for him is that he can find his passion in life, as well as maintain the balance between that passion and everything else. I hope he learns that life isn’t always about what we have prepared for it to be, but what God surprises us with at any given moment. And I hope he learns to realize, as I have, that it’s ok to be a Jack of all trades, as long as we work toward mastering The One that truly counts.

And that’s All in a day’s work!