QUEENIE BEE AND HER WORKER BEES...

I've got a one-liner for you!  "That's not my thing!" Have you ever asked someone to help with a project, activity, or another important and vital function? Maybe you are the lead on a project for your company for the upcoming Christmas fund raiser for needy families in the community. Perhaps you oversee setting up monthly potlucks at your office. Your church has an annual outreach event that draws hundreds of folks. But, when you ask for help people suddenly "think" they are busy that day, or you get the proverbial, "That's not my thing."

Most of us have experienced the steel anchor of weight on our shoulders when discouragement takes hold of us after we receive these refusals to support a worthy cause or event. I know my brain races to how friends will quickly respond to my text or email about getting together for lunch, but when I share there is a need to serve in some capacity, then suddenly I have been "ghosted."

Perhaps I have solved the ghosting. I just decide to send yet another text or email, "Hey, did you get that text I sent you last week about..." My goodness. Why do we have to be so blunt with people?  

Sometimes, I wonder. Do we just want to do what benefits us? Lunch certainly benefits us as we do need to eat in order to stay alive. We need each other socially too it seems. Except maybe when there is work involved. I think about how I have watched the queen bee in those hives at the county fair. All the worker bees doing so much, and the queen bee just sits there. At least, there are many worker bees around Queenie Bee. My experience has been the worker bees are in awful short supply.

What's a worker bee to do? I have always been a hard worker. I put a lot of effort into any project. I want it to go well, but sometimes that requires more hands and feet. Just like the worker bees surrounding the Queenie, she won't survive with only one or two hard working bees around her.  

We don't always listen to others. They need us. Maybe it is for a once-a-year event. You just need them to do a one-hour shift grilling hamburgers, overseeing a booth, or passing out bottles of water. But "that's not my thing" or "I'm busy that day" raises its ugly head. Most of us (but not all) are perceptive enough to recognize when we are being snowed (lied to). Personally, I would do better if someone just honestly told me "I'd rather lay on my couch, eat a bag of chips, and sleep than help you with something that benefits the community."

But no. That would make them sound lazy, unkind, and unwilling. But you know something. At the end of the conversation that is what I think anyway. 

If you are a worker bee, don't give up. You helped someone even with a limited band of troops. You experienced that rewarding feeling of knowing you did something that helped a stranger in some way. The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.

The worker bees keep Queenie alive, so she produces the honey. When you are one of the few "worker bees" just press onward. The honey is your reward!!