Factory Work. Melting aluminum ingots and recasting them into metal sheets that were then used by other industries.

I took this job so I could make a lot of money to support my family. The factory ran 24/7, and the hourly wage was premium. But the work was indoors, and the factory was unbearably hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It smelled bad, and the employees were unfriendly to new workers. To top it off, the rotating shifts soon proved to be exhausting. My eight-hour shift would change every couple months, turning me inside-out and topsy-turvy.

A sign on the road summed the whole thing up: Dead End. The plant was located at the end of a dead-end street, so every day I drove by that sign. The longer I worked there, the larger this sign loomed. It grew in my mind to be a curse, a prison sentence, a succinct history of my so-far not illustrious career.

Had all my aspirations, my hopes, my dreams of a happy, successful life, come down to this? A dead end? Sadly, I resigned myself to this bleak conclusion and dutifully went to work, day in and day out.

This story would end here had it not been for one thing: Gratitude.

One day, I finally realized I'd had enough. I had to quit moping around feeling sorry for myself. And I needed some spiritual inspiration to make the change. My family had always turned to spirituality to solve problems, so I figured it would help now. And gratitude is a key concept in one of our favorite books on spirituality, Science and Health.

I started by contemplating more deeply a basic spiritual concept I'd grown up with—that God is Love. As I prayed for a new understanding of this idea, it occurred to me that since God is everywhere, I could not be in a position where Love would not be obvious. The admission that God is Love required the conclusion that His loving presence has to be obvious—it has to be in my face!

I'd also been taught that one of the best ways for feeling God's presence is gratitude—exactly what I wasn't feeling. But I knew that if I looked hard enough, I would find something to be grateful for, right on the job.

Now, why would I do this? After all, it was only a job. Well, to me it was also about happiness. Prior to my shift from grumble to gratitude, I was unhappy quite often. My family struggled to understand my periods of grouchiness and fatigue, but I could no longer excuse my actions by just saying I was "earning a living."

At first, I simply remembered the good side of the things I'd been taking for granted. For example, when I'd had a job that kept me outdoors a lot, I'd always wished I was indoors. Now I reminded myself that being sheltered and protected was a sign of God's love for me. I also remembered my very loving and supportive family and the income the job provided. The more I did this, the easier it became to be grateful for some of the very things I resented so much about my job. It occurs to me now that I was living proof of the passage in Science and Health: "Are we really grateful for the good already received? Then we shall avail ourselves of the blessingswe have, and thus be fitted to receive more" (p. 3).

The summer heat became energy. My sweat was a symbol of faithful duty. The smell and dirt were simply byproducts of the production process, so I could be grateful because they showed that we were up and running and being productive. The men and women who were previously so unfriendly began to become close friends. Even the rotating shifts became a sign of constant activity, without which this particular product could not be made, in which case a lot of other people and I would soon be out of work.

To me, all this effort was to acknowledge that God is Love, the Love that provides for and comforts all creation. I would then be able to see the job as a loving provision not only for myself but also for my family. In fact, all the families of the people at the plant were included in God's great love.

I began to see my job as a gift from God, and I thanked Him for it. Not a halfhearted thank-you so I would get another, better job, but a deep appreciation for the opportunity to serve God any way I was asked. My gratitude to God became an integral part of my day-to-day work at the plant.

You might wonder if anything else changed. Well, I started liking my job. I was promoted and had a successful nine years there. When I left, it was to pursue a new career that I am still in, and dearly love.

Remember the "Dead End" sign? It's gone. The street opened up, and now that plant is on a four-lane thoroughfare that has become a major artery connecting the interstate with two sides of our town. The dead end is long gone!

This article first appeared on the Web site www.spirituality.com