An Unlikely Messenger
I want to share with you a powerful little moment that I experienced a few years back. I was accompanying a member of the clergy with the hymns for a communion service in one of our local nursing homes. Besides getting a laugh at being mistaken for a boy with my super short hair it was an incredibly humbling experience, to have the opportunity to serve the members who helped build our community to what it is today. However, as beautiful as the sacrament of communion is, for me the real highlight of the service came afterwards, as I chatted with the residents. One lady sat clutching her little baby doll throughout the service. After the service I spoke with her and enquiried about the baby doll’s name, as I know how much enjoyment these little dolls bring to these ladies. She smiled as she talked about her little baby, turned to me and put her hand in my shoulder and looked deep into my eyes.
“You have a long road ahead of you but it will be ok, God has a plan for you and you will get there, so the next time you feel like you can’t do it or that you are worthless remember that God is with you and in you and he can do anything. Don’t you forget that, our God is amazing and he can do anything.”
Now as a stand alone comment this is powerful enough, but in light of two things it is all the more mind blowing.
Firstly that night I was setting off on a long journey into the Scottish highlands to attend a family funeral. The weather forecast was for snow and I’d be driving through the night in unfamiliar roads in dark and dangerous conditions. Understandably this was quite a daunting prospect, and I had been asking my friends to pray for a safe journey for my father and I.
“You have a long road ahead of you but it will be ok, God has a plan for you and you will get there, so the next time you feel like you can’t do it or that you are worthless remember that God is with you and in you and he can do anything. Don’t you forget that, our God is amazing and he can do anything.”
The second application of the wisdom of a little lady who carries a doll is much more profound and longer reaching. As many of you know I was exploring a call to Christian ministry, and as exciting as it was it was also quite a daunting prospect. It was not without its challenges and difficulties and I had a very young family to take into consideration. My heart knew that I was being called to serve but my head, the more logical side of me, was saying hmmm isn’t there something less demanding you could do to help people. My head was saying I’m maybe not cut out to be a minister, sure there were much more worthwhile people out there yet my heart was saying that in a way I already am ministering to folk in my every day life, through things such as my music outreach with the band and just every day encounters. Ordination would bring with it new challenges but also much more preparation, education and skills enabling me to perhaps more effectively help people. Even the logic side of me had to agree with that! Even now as I look back, after that door didn’t open, I can see the value in that journey.
“You have a long road ahead of you but it will be ok, God has a plan for you and you will get there, so the next time you feel like you can’t do it or that you are worthless remember that God is with you and in you and he can do anything. Don’t you forget that, our God is amazing and he can do anything.”
I had two long journeys ahead. One physical and one spiritual.
But as I write this and the words of that little lady, who spoke with clarity right to my soul as she clutched her little baby, resound in my head and my heart I am reminded once more that God indeed can use anyone. I know without a shadow of a doubt he used that lady to strengthen my heart at that time.
He can use me.
He can use you.
Nothing is too great or too much for him. No one is unreachable or unusable.
God takes the impossible and says
“I’m Possible”
Just sometimes he says it through an unlikely messenger.
