You may have noticed that for the past week I haven’t been posting the daily Lenten photo. Finding God in the everyday is a good thing, but adding it daily to my lengthy to-do list wasn’t a good thing. Instead of a spiritual undertaking, it felt like a daily a chore. When connecting with God becomes a burden, I can be 98% certain that I’m doing it wrong.
I didn’t announce that I was letting the challenge slide because I didn’t want to make a Big Deal out of it. We humans are pretty good at that (see above).
We all face Big Deal choices but I think they are fewer and farther between than we believe. I need to convince myself and my son that this is true because he’s currently trying to pick a college and a major. At the moment, he feels the weight of the world on his shoulders and I can see why. He’s grown up in the era of standardized testing. Fill in one wrong bubble, and the consequences are dire. You’ll ruin your teacher, your school and your district.
Now the counselors are telling them about student debt and people graduating with degrees that won’t get them job. Or they get jobs but still can’t pay off their loans. Sure, it’s important to know that these risks are out there but why do we so often believe that there is 1 good choice and 99 disasters?
Yesterday, I was at the funeral for a friend’s wife. As the minister talked about Shelly, he mentioned that she had considered becoming a minister. Instead, she became a speech therapist. That must have felt like a huge choice. Ministry or therapy. Saving souls or helping stroke patients regain their speech. I can’t even imagine how Shelly made the choice.
But the funny thing is that for Shelly it wasn’t an either/or decision. She may not have studied ministry, but even when she was sick, the Love of Christ shone in her face. She always had an uplifting word or a funny story to share. She may have been a therapist but she ministered to everyone who knew her.
This is what I want my son to keep in mind. God gives you choices, various ways to use his gifts. Very seldom is it a choice between 1 good decision and 99 ways to fail. Therapy vs ministry. Orange vs yellow. You have His gifts in hand.
–SueBE
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March 20, 2016 at 8:23 pm
calensariel
Important post. And how many stroke victims have had their souls saved in the end because your friend helped hem find their speech again. You just never know. I’m glad to hear you say you struggled to keep up with this. I didn’t struggle to keep up so much as to how to find the truth as I felt it in each of the words and pictures without just giving a Sunday School answer. I think a lot of people are falling away from church because the Sunday School answers don’t answer the deeper questions… JMO. GladI did it, though.
March 22, 2016 at 1:47 am
suebe
Funny that you should bring up why people are falling away from the church. We had this discussion yesterday in Sunday School. One couple blames the (GASP) liberals and those people who went to state universities. The funny thing is that I’ve asked people why they left the church and they all mention the hypocrisy. ::shrug::