In a radical break from the medieval distinction between the sacred and the secular, the Protestant Reformation dignified all honest work.

I love this video, which is filled with happy scenes from my city. And I love Melissa, who appears at 3 minutes 12 seconds into the film. 

Melissa literally follows the Reformation call to walk in one’s vocation. She walks all over our city delivering mail with a smile on her face and a cheery word for those she meets. She knows where our grandson goes to school. She knows when our granddaughter was born. We know her favorite restaurant and what she orders for dinner there. We see the tears in her eyes when she talks of her mother, who died years ago on April 27. We have become friends during our thirty-second snatches at our mailbox.

Melissa goes the extra mile. Knowing that theft is common in our city, she keeps our packages safe. We always know when she is off work because some unthinking substitute leaves a package on our front steps, from which the Christmas cactus in the frog planter my mother left me when she died, was stolen the day after it graced our stoop. 

Melissa spreads the fragrance of Christ throughout the city as she walks in the good works God has prepared for her (Ephesians 2:10). One of our neighbors calls her Million Dollar Melissa, and, one day, the gracious reward for her work will be worth far more than a million dollars. 

“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward” Colossians 3:23-24.