I can’t be the only one, surely, who has popped online for just a few minutes and discovered three hours and several ‘pins’ later that the internet can be quite an addictive place?
And I certainly can’t be the only person, given the amount of fellow bemused shoppers I find at the tills in Hobbycraft, who have become convinced, during their Pinstagram adventures, that they are in fact crafting genuineness, able to dream up and construct whatever comes to mind with the help only of double sided tape and an app on your phone?
Over the years, even before my surgical attachment to my iPhone, I have tried my hand at almost every ‘better yourself’ activity there is. I have purchased language cassettes (yep – cassettes, remember them?), changed my hair colour, sweated myself silly on a cross trainer, read the classics, read the books trendy people tell you are classics, watched black and white ‘must see’ movies, pretended to not like my actual favourite films, cooked Christmas dinner for more people than I had cutlery, acquired a taste for olives (which I now love), not to mention all the times I tried to have a budget busting birthday bash, Christmas celebration or anniversary do, which usually ended up costing more than it would have to take my entire family and their offspring to the Ritz.
It’s a difficult thing to come to terms with, isn’t it, that you are who you are, and no amount of watching Kirsty and her homemade creations, or the Great British bake off will change it?
Of course there are some things that improve with time. I can now make rice, for example, for my half-Indian husband, and it no longer resembles mashed potato. I Can now also sew, read a spreadsheet and fold a fitted sheet (although to quote Queen Latifah, ‘ain’t nobody got time for that!’). But that person, in my head, that I think I am, who pads about the house in an apron and Toms shoes, or who hangs the washing out in Hunter wellies, I am not. And neither do I live in the imaginary woman’s house. My every surface has not been lovingly shabby-chiced, nor has my bed been rearranged to welcome in a ray of fresh morning light.
Yet here I am. With the call and command of God all over my life to reach my world for Jesus. My world.
I am not called to be somewhere else or someone else, my call is to simply, as Jesus said, ‘go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”
And so the question remains for me, who will occupy my world if it’s not me? Whose responsibility is it to tell my children about Jesus if not mine? How will my neighbours understand that the God of heaven loves them so much that without them even knowing he moved a bunch of Christians into the street to help shed some light on his truth, if we are too busy imagining life somewhere else?
The revelation goes like this, ‘I am uniquely positioned for purpose.’
Actually, on scouring Pinterest (looking for boys’ bedroom ideas) I stumbled across this quote. Maybe it was God speaking, maybe not, and maybe it’s God’s word to you today too, via this article. It simply says, “you are exactly where you need to be.”
Your kids NEED you. Your neighbours NEED you. Your mum, granny, dad and brother, NEED you. Your boss NEEDS you. Your bus driver NEEDS you, your best mate NEEDS you. Your partner NEEDS you. They NEED you to take your call and responsibility seriously. To share your faith, to live your faith, to introduce them to Jesus so they can be restored to their father in Heaven. They might not know that’s what they need, but they do.
Who’d have thought it eh? I couldn’t make a scone if my life depended on it, but God chooses to use me to reach my world. Marvelous. 