Thursday, October 1, 2009

For a Moment

There are moments in life when you get a chance to do something really extraordinary. You get to benefit someone somehow. You are involved in something important. You witness healing and are able to add something to it. These are moments you expect to be remarkable.

And then there are moments in life when you reach out somehow, with some infinitesimal measure of concern or kindness. You do or say or give something you know can barely matter and yet you do it because it’s yours to do. You feel powerless to offer anything in the face of pain or sorrow. These are moments you expect to be unremarkable.

But sometimes… sometimes the smallest of things become the most meaningful.

And the grandest of gestures seem to pale in insignificance.

The ways I intended this day were not the ways God used. Of course it stands to reason and, in this case is true then, that the things I knew were too small to matter seemed to be used in the most beautiful sense. It’s humbling. It’s so humbling to sit once again in the quietest part of the day and look back in marvel at how little any of it ever had to do with me.

There was “pain in the offering tonight”. But I also got in on “something beautiful”! It was just as I had expected it to be…. only, in reverse.

I guess I sort of get that. If it ever began to depend on me, I suppose I would cave under the pressure. But God will bless what He blesses and withhold from what He withholds. The outcome isn’t necessarily the point. At least it can’t be as far as it concerns me. The point is the obedience. And even though it hurts when all the hard work doesn’t pay off I would risk it all over again. Because sometimes…sometimes the almost effortless thing makes an impact so beautiful, so meaningful that everything else fades away.

For a moment.

4 comments:

Traci Michele said...

Great post! I so often forget that my ways are not His ways... He sees the big picture, and knows what is best each day, in each situation.

Thanks for stopping by my blog!

Your new friend,
Traci

janelle said...

Cheri,

This is beautiful. Just beautiful...there is song by Misti Edwards and I can't think of the name of it right now by there is a line in the song about the "...inside, outside, upside down kingdom of God..."

Obedience is difficult but I hear peace in this post!

I love Isaish 55:9 in the Message:

"I don't think the way you think. The way you work isn't the way I work."

Isn't that the truth?

Wendy Paine Miller said...

I love that you were able to "get in on" something beautiful. I wrote about how God used the mere gesture of someone handing me daffodils recently.

~ Wendy

Deborah Ann said...

Ah, so beautifully written!