What if the work I've spent years wondering was enough was never wasted work at all?
I've spent a lot of years wondering if what I was doing was enough.
Enough money.
Enough progress.
Enough success.
Enough purpose.
Enough to justify all the work.
I've worked most of my adult life. I've spent years in real estate. I've spent about 15 years helping run towing and transport businesses. I've worked from home, behind a desk, on the phone, handling paperwork, solving problems, worrying about bills, finding work, losing work, starting over and trying to figure out what came next.
I started wondering:
What is all of this actually leading to?
I don't think I've ever been afraid of work.
But I have been afraid of spending my life working at the wrong things.
There's a difference.
And that's what I found myself thinking about during my prayer time today and walking to the mailbox.
Maybe I've Been Measuring the Wrong Thing
The verse that started all of this was Proverbs 16:3:
"Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans."
I've read that verse before.
But today I kept coming back to the word commit.
For a long time, I think part of me interpreted faith as asking God to help make my plans work.
Here's what I'm doing.
Here's what I'm building.
Here's what I need.
Please bless it.
Please make it successful.
Please open the door.
And preferably, please make it obvious enough that I know I'm doing the right thing.
But I'm beginning to think committing our work to God means something harder than that.
It means being willing to let Him change the plan.
Maybe even the definition of success.
That's harder for me.
Because if success isn't measured only by how much the business grows, how much money we make, how many people follow me, or whether anyone notices what I've created...
how do I know the work mattered?
Maybe that's where trust comes in.
The Work Nobody Sees
There have been a lot of years when our work hasn't looked particularly impressive from the outside.
Towing is hard.
Small business is hard.
We've been through good economies and bad ones. High fuel prices. Repairs. Insurance. Changing technology. Changing customers. Changing industries.
We've had seasons where we worked like crazy and still wondered if it was enough.
I've watched Wayne work for decades.
I've spent years doing the work behind the work.
The calls.
The paperwork.
The books.
The problems.
The decisions.
The worrying.
The figuring-it-out-again-tomorrow part.
And I've questioned it.
A lot.
Was this really what we were supposed to be doing?
Should we have built something bigger?
Should I have done something different?
Did I miss something?
Was all of this work actually leading anywhere?
I still don't have all those answers.
But today I thought about another verse:
"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord..."
— Colossians 3:23
It doesn't say:
Whatever becomes successful.
Whatever makes the most money.
Whatever gets noticed.
Whatever turns into something big.
Whatever you do.
That hit me differently today.
What If None of It Was Wasted?
What if some of the work wasn't meant to build the thing I thought it was building?
That's the thought I can't quite get away from.
Maybe some seasons of work build a business.
Maybe others build endurance.
Maybe some teach us how to lead.
Some teach us how to lose.
Some teach us how to start again.
Some teach us patience.
Some teach us what matters.
And some might simply prepare us for work we can't see yet.
I look at my own life now and wonder about that.
The years in real estate taught me about people and business.
The years in towing taught me about perseverance, uncertainty, money, marriage, customers, employees, mistakes, survival and starting over.
Hard seasons taught me things I never would have volunteered to learn.
Country life has taught me to slow down enough to notice some of it.
And now I'm sitting here writing about those lessons.
Maybe the work wasn't separate after all.
Maybe God was connecting things I couldn't connect yet.
I don't know.
And I think it's important for me to say that.
I don't want to look back at my life and pretend that I suddenly understand God's entire plan.
I don't.
I'm still in it.
I'm still asking questions.
I'm still trying to figure out what I'm supposed to build and what I'm supposed to let go.
But I am starting to believe that work doesn't have to turn out the way I expected for it to have mattered.
And that brings me a lot of peace.
I'm Learning to Ask a Different Question
For years, I've asked:
Is this working?
I'm trying to ask something different now.
Am I being faithful with what's in front of me?
That's a much different way to live.
It doesn't mean we stop caring about results.
I certainly don't.
We have bills.
We need income.
Businesses have to make money to survive.
I want the things I'm building to succeed.
I pray for that.
But I'm learning that there's a difference between working faithfully toward something and believing I can control how everything turns out.
That second one will wear you out.
I know because I've tried.
There are so many things I prayed about today.
Wisdom.
Financial provision.
Discipline.
Courage.
Patience.
Better decisions.
Open doors.
Closed doors.
Confidence when I'm uncertain.
The ability to lead when I need to lead and the humility to listen when I need to listen.
But one part of my prayer may have mattered more than all the others:
Help me know when to work and when to rest.
Because I don't want to spend the rest of my life constantly striving for a finish line that keeps moving.
Maybe Success Can Be Quieter Than We Think
I used to think success would eventually feel like arriving somewhere.
I'm not so sure anymore.
Maybe success sometimes looks like having enough.
Maybe it looks like doing honest work and sleeping peacefully at night.
Maybe it's being able to help somebody because you already made the mistake they're about to make.
Maybe it's a marriage that survived hard seasons.
Maybe it's having enough courage to start over.
Maybe it's treating somebody kindly on a day when nobody would have blamed you for doing otherwise.
Maybe it's building something slowly.
Maybe it's learning when enough really is enough.
And maybe it's using what we've learned so somebody else doesn't have to learn every lesson the hard way.
That's becoming increasingly important to me.
I have years of lessons sitting inside ordinary work.
Maybe that's part of what Axles & Acres is supposed to become.
Not a place where I tell people I've figured life out.
I haven't.
More like:
Here's what we've lived.
Here's what it taught me.
Here's what we're trying now.
Maybe something in it will help you, too.
For Whoever Needs This Today
Maybe you're working hard at something right now and wondering if any of it matters.
Maybe your business isn't where you thought it would be.
Maybe your career changed.
Maybe you're raising children and nobody sees half of what you do.
Maybe you're taking care of someone.
Maybe you're starting again.
Maybe you're doing ordinary work that doesn't feel particularly meaningful at the moment.
I can't promise you what that work will become.
And I won't tell you that every hard season eventually turns into some huge earthly reward.
I don't believe faith works like that.
But I do believe God can use things we would have called wasted.
The years.
The mistakes.
The closed doors.
The ordinary days.
The work nobody applauded.
Even the seasons when we weren't sure what we were doing.
Maybe our job isn't always to understand where every piece fits.
Maybe sometimes our job is simply to do today's work with integrity, ask for wisdom, pay attention when God redirects us, and trust Him enough to keep walking.
That's what I'm trying to do.
Not perfectly.
Just a little more faithfully than I did yesterday.
And for the first time in a long time, I'm beginning to wonder if the question was never:
Was all that work enough?
Maybe the better question is:
What if none of it was wasted?
☀️ BRENDA'S BEACONS
The little lights I'm finding along the way.
A Verse for This Journey
"Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans."
— Proverbs 16:3
Something to Take With You
If you've been questioning a season of your own life, instead of only asking whether it was successful, try asking:
What did this season teach me that I couldn't have learned any other way?
You may not know the answer yet.
I don't always know mine either.
But I'm starting to believe that doesn't mean the work—or the season—was wasted.
Sometimes we don't need to see the whole road.
We just need enough light for the next few steps. ☀️
Along the Way
If you'd like to keep exploring what we're building and sharing:
☀️ Brenda's Beacons — Personal reflections, recommendations, and the little lights I'm finding along the way.
🚚 Life on the Axles — Real work, real roads, and lessons from towing, auto transport, and small business.
🌾 Life on the Acres — Real stories from home, the land, projects, country living, marriage, and ordinary life on our little piece of land.
📚 Helpful Resources — Things we've used, learned from, created, and found helpful along the way.
🛒 Amazon Storefront — Browse the books, tools, everyday favorites, and things we actually use and recommend from the road, around the acres, and along the way.
🎬 Along the Way — Watch the everyday pieces of life behind Axles & Acres, from the road to the acres and everywhere in between.
If something here helped you today, you're always welcome to subscribe to Axles & Acres or share it with someone who might need the same little light along the way.
Just a little note from me: I share faith, health, work, and life here from my own experience and understanding. Nothing I write is intended to replace medical or professional advice, pastoral guidance, or your own study of Scripture. I'm simply sharing what I'm learning and what has helped me along the way, in case some of it helps you too.
Disclosure: Some links on this website may be affiliate links, which help support Axles & Acres at no additional cost to you. We only recommend products, tools, and resources that have genuinely earned a place in our lives. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
