While your youth is a time to have fun and enjoy life, it is also a time to learn the value of work and ambition. The Bible has much to say about the importance of working diligently.
Here are six careers that you can embark on right now:
- Newspaper business. Throw a paper route, and discover the satisfaction of getting a job done early.
- Investment broker. There are companies that will take investment capital of just $50. Learn how the market works, and start investing a little at a time.
- Graphic arts. If you have a bent for drawing and art, offer your assistance to those in need now. I know 14 and 15 year olds who design logos and Web sites for companies and churches.
- Film and video production. With an inexpensive camera and some software you can be in the “movie” biz. My son began to be paid for his projects when he was just 15 years old.
- Lawn care. If you have a mower and a weed-eater, distribute flyers in your neighborhood and sign accounts to cut and trim grass after school and all summer.
- Child Care. Make yourself available to families for quality baby-sitting services. Be a good one, because they are hard to come by!
by Blaine Bartel.
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers
Blaine and Lori Bartel didn’t set out to build a place like this. They became it.
Blaine once lived at the top of the ministry world—national TV, a booming youth movement at Church on the Move, and a growing church in Dallas. But while the stage lights were bright, the darkness underneath was darker. A secret 23-year sexual addiction buried everything he valued—his marriage, ministry, finances, reputation, and identity.
Crushed and barely holding on to life, he spent over a year in deep therapy, wrestling with shame and fighting for healing. Then, somewhere on a windswept highway between Kansas City and Tulsa, he heard the voice that lifted him out of the soil:
“I am not going to give you a recovery. I am calling you into resurrection.”
Everything changed.
Blaine found complete freedom and began decoding a Jesus-centered path that leads men out of the grave and into new life. For more than a decade, he’s been guiding other men through that same resurrection.
Lori was walking her own road—rebuilding after 17 years married to a chronic alcoholic, carrying both the wounds and the courage of a woman who refused to stay broken. She was searching for purpose, for peace, for somewhere her heart could breathe again.
Then God crossed their paths.
They met over pasta at Ti Amo (“I love you”—God’s little wink).
A year later, in a simple wedding wrapped in hope, they said yes to each other and to a calling bigger than themselves.
Today—13 years in—they share one mission:
To pull men out of addiction and to rebuild the marriages addiction has shattered.
House of Resurrection is the fruit of the very ground that once tried to bury them—a sacred space for honesty, healing, and brand-new beginnings.
They are joyful parents of four grown kids, proud grandparents of two, and happiest anywhere with lakes, beaches, sunshine, and reminders that darkness never gets to write the final chapter.