Finding God's Peace at Work

I work as a shift supervisor at Starbucks. I help out my other baristas when I see that they are overwhelmed and I delegate tasks and so forth. I’m also in charge of counting inventory and cash management tasks for each day that I’m scheduled as the shift supervisor.

Recently I have been working a lot of extra hours because my other shift supervisors have been on vacation. We’ve also been hiring a lot of new people who are in the process of being trained.

One night, this past week, was especially overwhelming. I was the shift supervisor who was closing the store with primarily new people (they were still untrained at many tasks). This night I also had to do an inventory count, where I basically had to count everything in the store: every little syrup bottle, fruit inclusion, food item . . . everything. I was feeling very overwhelmed at everything I still had to do to close the store, and I didn’t want to make my new fellow coworkers feel overwhelmed on their roles with making drinks and taking orders during a busy day.

I was feeling very overwhelmed and stressed out that I was planning not to take a break during my 8.5 hour work day. I was thinking this over while I was counting cash in the back room. There was no one in the back room with me, so I decided to cry out to God.

I spoke to God as if he was standing next to me. I told him that I was feeling very overwhelmed, and I asked him for peace and to remind me of his presence.

All of a sudden, the store was eerily quiet. The Starbucks store is usually very noisy: there’s usually music playing, people talking over the headset, coffee grinding, fridges making noise, dishes being cleaned, etc. But, immediately after I asked God for peace, the store was dead silent for four minutes. You could hear a pin drop. All I could do was laugh.

God was showing me that he was with me all along, that he is in control, that I have nothing to worry about. He was showing me that he can and he wants to give me peace. He is the Prince of Peace. I just had to ask him for it.

God wants to remind you of his presence, you just have to acknowledge him and ask him.

“I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods” (Daniel 3:25). There will always be, for the child of God, another walking in the valley, another standing in the fire.

PS: I did end up taking a break, and closing the store went smoothly.