Coroners and Three-year Olds?
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Hebrews 4:12-13
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
I don’t know why, but these verses made me call to mind a butcher, cutting up a side of beef with great precision. Then I immediately pictured one of the crime shows I watch too often. There’s always a scene with the coroner and a body on the table, laid open and bare for all the world to see. When we really stop to think about it, that’s how intimately and completely God knows our hearts. He doesn’t need to cut us open to see who we really are because He already knows. He made us, and thought of us eons ago.
He decided who our parents would be, and what our favorite color would be and how we look. He created us to fill a particular purpose. Before we were born, there was void in the world, exactly the size and shape of our physical bodies—and waiting to be filled by exactly what is in our minds, hearts and souls.
We need not waste time on regret, on holding grudges, on worrying about whom has more or less than we do. We need not worry about anything – except to figure out who and what God intended us to be – to make the world complete by our lives and our living. We can deny our purpose. We can refuse to live into it. We can spend our entire lives running from it, but we never feel fulfilled until we accept and embrace it. Sometimes that purpose seems mundane and unexciting, especially when we watch television programs and commercials that entice us to the “good life.” But don’t believe them! The good life is a life lived in line with God’s plan for us.
That doesn’t mean we need to panic that we’ve chosen the wrong profession, or the wrong church, or the wrong anything! It simply means we need to figure out how to shape our lives to be in line with God’s plan. We can be an accountant by day and a loving, warm mom by night. We can be a social worker by day and go home to a cozy, warm, and love-filled home full of children and pets. Our families can be our “mission.” So can our work. So can our extra-curricular activities—tutoring, showing up for a church grounds clean up day, preparing and delivering a meal for neighbor, sending a note to a friend who is ill or going through a difficult time—all of these are ways to live out our purpose and none of them should be discounted. Most of us will never be a spiritual giant like Mother Theresa. We can still live with her heart, caring for those in our lives with all the love we can muster.
I absolutely love children. God gave me two of the most amazing children I could ever have dreamed of! At this point in my life I’m also the teacher of a class of three-year olds in a day care center. Wow! I am reminded daily why we are made to have children when we are young! But every single day, I am given the gift of their love and their imaginations. I can think of no greater reward in life than to be told by a three-year old, wrapped up in a blankie, looking up at you and saying, “I love you Mrs. Moss.” That, for me, makes it worth getting out of bed in the morning.
That is not a “career” I would have imagined at 50 years old. But it is so fulfilling and even on my craziest, most exhausting day, I do feel it is what I am supposed to be doing right now. It’s not the only thing, but one of them. For now.
My prayer today is that you look at your life from God’s vantage point, laid bare and exposed. And that you realize he made you for a specific and very important purpose.
Mary
