labor day: work

Monday 9/4/17: Today is Labor Day in the United States. I'm certain you already know this. I'm hoping most of you are using the day to pause and relax with family and friends. I know such a time is much deserved for so many. In fact, I've been thinking a lot today as to why we actually labor? Why do we work? The answer for most, of course, is to provide for ourselves and our loves. To put food on the table, shelter over our heads. Sure, some work for notoriety. Some work for fun. But most work long and hard hours... the givers that give. Sadly, some don't work enough or at all... the takers. But those that take actually lose because they don't understand that they are missing one of the greatest of gifts from our Creator. For work is such a blessing when you really look at it. A gift to better all our lives. With it, we gain and grow in speciality. We progress and improve as a society, as an era, as a whole. We are blessed if we have work, aren't we? Of course, the Lord also calls us to times of rest. And to always trust our future to His ultimate care. We are to tend to the garden... but walk through it with His wisdom while always abiding in Him. You see, too much work can damage us; too little can hurt us. But overall, balanced work in His Name allows us the greatest honor to serve one another. And this brings me to my real point today... How DO you work when you work? Do you give your all. Do you consider it a gift? Do you take to heart how your efforts are actually helping the whole of mankind? Or is your work centered around selfishness? Are you in it only for yourself, for your bottom line, for your advancement? Do you even care if future generations will benefit from what you give of yourself each and every day? How DO you work? As you rest this Labor Day, I encourage you to recharge your batteries so that you can return tomorrow with the goal to work well, work balanced, and work in God's love for one another. Happy Labor Day, y'all!
❤️
~V

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Congressional committee report bill, S. 730, to Congress proposing Labor Day May 15, 1894:

"The use of national holidays is to emphasize some great event or principle in the minds of the people by giving them a day of rest and recreation, a day of enjoyment, in commemoration of it. By making one day in each year a public holiday for the benefit of workingmen the equality and dignity of labor is emphasized. Nothing is more important to the public weal than that the nobility of labor be maintained. So long as the laboring man can feel that he holds an honorable as well as useful place in the body politic, so long will he be a loyal and faithful citizen.
The celebration of Labor Day as a national holiday will in time naturally lead to an honorable emulation among the different crafts beneficial to them and to the whole public. It will tend to increase the feeling of common brotherhood among men of all crafts and callings, and at the same time kindle an honorable desire in each craft to surpass the rest.
There can be no substantial objection to making one day in the year a national holiday for the benefit of labor. The labor organizations of the whole country, representing the great body of our artisan population, request it. They are the ones most interested. They desire it and should have it. If the farmers, manufacturers, and professional men are indifferent to the measure, or even oppose it, which there is no reason to believe, that still would constitute no good objection, for their work can be continued on holidays as well as on other days if they so desire it. Workingmen should have one day in the year peculiarly their own. Nor will their employers lose anything by it. Workingmen are benefited by a reasonable amount of rest and recreation. Whatever makes a workingman more of a man makes him more useful as a craftsman."

President Grover Cleveland signed the bill into law on June 28, 1894.