AFFIRMATION EXERCISE

“Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation: he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that sheweth mercy, with cheerfulness.” (Romans 12:8)

I follow a set pattern in my Biblical “personal devotional reading” and it happens that my reading for today was Romans chapter 12. The part of the verse I want to emphasize in this piece is “...he that exhorteth, on exhortation...”. It could also be translated something like, “he who has the gift of encouragement, be sure to encourage others”. When I first knew my wife Mary Ann she was often talking about “affirmation exercises” she had been part of at First Baptist Church of Dedham. An “affirmation exercise” is something that highlights a person’s talents and gifts and is meant to be an encouragement to that person.

I expect to do an “affirmation exercise” in some sort of a church or Bible study setting...MAYBE even in a secular therapy group, but I wouldn’t expect to do one at work. However, that’s exactly what I was called upon to be part of this week. Many of you know I work part time at Total Connections LLC in downtown Framingham- better known as VIP Answering Service. I have to be careful writing this piece because the job has a policy that I am not to discuss trade secrets outside of work, nor am I to discuss any of our clients or anything like that. BUT, I think this piece if done correctly does not violate any of those agreements.

There are actually quite a few people who work at VIP, mostly as answering service operators, like me. It’s a “24/7” operation. To boost morale, this summer we’re divided into imaginary “baseball teams”. We didn’t pick them...we got randomly assigned. My team is the “Victors” and Kathy, one of the supervisors, is our leader. I believe there are 4 of us on this “team”...well 4 or 5. We don’t all necessarily work together at the same time. For the past few weeks, every answering service operator has been given a trivial quiz to do. The first one was multiple choice questions. Then there were a couple of crossword puzzles. Each quiz dealt with our clients, policies, procedures, etc. It’s a good way to review the stuff, and it helps the management to know where there may need to be improvements. The past quizzes were done by each individual, and then the scores assigned to their team...if that makes sense.

Tuesday, Kathy the supervisor brought me a copy of this week’s quiz, which is by far the hardest. It’s meant to be done by our whole team. If we can’t all get together at once, which is the ideal, we can at least give input, and Kathy can tie it all together. First there was a crossword puzzle for us all to do together. Not bad. Kathy had already done about half of it and I did probably about a quarter of it while I was on the phone. But the next part is much tougher. There are several difficult hypothetical situations to consider relative to a nuclear attack! One part of the quiz deals with getting supplies together; but the next part asks what 6 people you would pick to survive in a fallout shelter and why? Kathy said to me, “Bob, I think you’d be REALLY GOOD at this!”

Well, I guess they all know I’m a minister. I looked it over and at first I thought,
“Why does she think I’d be good at this? This is like asking if you’ve got too many people in a lifeboat, who do you throw out, the baby or the old lady?”

So, at first, I thought it was kind of distasteful. Then, I started thinking about it. I realized I work with one guy who’s a great cook (he treated us all to chili dogs one Saturday while we were on the phones) and who is very optimistic and has a fantastic sense of humor. I realized he’d probably be a good one to be a survivor in the shelter.

After work on Tuesday, I began thinking about people who work at VIP, the qualities they have, and who I’d pick and why. I was NOT scheduled to work today, but I sat at the computer and typed out 6 names of workers at VIP and why I’d choose them to survive in a fallout shelter. Yeah, I know, it’s kind of a weird assignment, but I wonder if afterward the people will be told who chose them and why. That COULD be really encouraging to them! (Now, I suppose there might be some people nobody picks, and they might feel bad, but maybe THAT’S a teaching tool, as well.) I got so excited about it that I printed my sheet out, went down to VIP and went in to see Kathy the supervisor.

“I’ve got a special delivery!” I told her, and handed her my sheet. I’ll see her tomorrow, so I’ll find out if she liked it. Who knows, maybe our team will win this week!

Yeah, that’s an affirmation exercise, and you know what? I got really AFFIRMED just doing it!