Unglamorous things.

October 8, 2014

My tiny, divine appointment at last fall's BTG conference.
The countdown is on: we are only two days away from Bridging the Gap's fall conference!

Dozens of women have been hard at work for months: planning, praying, pulling speakers and music and all of the details together.  

As final preparations are made, as the leadership groups pulls together with hopes and dreams of how God will show up and how he will change lives, I cannot help but be reminded of all the big and little ways God uses us, when we leave space in our busy lives to respond.  

If you live in Minnesota, if you happen to have Friday and Saturday available, we invite you to join us.  You can find all of the information here. You won't leave disappointed, I promise.

And, I leave you with a re-post of my experience from last year's fall conference, because I still need this message, this lesson and can't say it any better than I said it last fall. Sometimes God chooses to use us in the small, quiet things - in ways no one but He will ever see.  
I had the honor of spending part of last weekend serving at a women's conference. I was so excited -- my fellow website writers and I had put together a devotional given to each attender, we were working at the Resource Table, and we were part of the conference team. Yay! It felt so wonderful to be on the team and on the mission with so many other amazing women. I just knew BIG things were going to happen, and I was excited to be in the middle of it!

As I worked Friday night, I began to notice all the mothers carrying small babies. My maternal instinct (usually fully engaged and absolutely, completely satisfied with my own two littles at home) began humming at the sight of all those babies. I started to get a little nervous about why my hormones were suddenly coursing hotly through my veins at the thought of holding one of those babies.

By the time Saturday morning rolled around, my maternal instinct had morphed into a submarine's torpedo guidance system. No child could be within 50 feet of me without all of my motherly instincts screaming and my arms longing to hold that baby. I started joking with my fellow Resource Table Workers about my need to hold a baby -- and why couldn't one of these mothers simply entrust me, a total stranger, with her newborn while she took ten minutes to get a mocha from the coffee shop next door?

No sooner than my friends and I finished laughing at the thought of me starting to offer to hold random babies, than one of the other women working at the conference came striding purposely up to the Resource Table with an infant in her arms. We all watched as she approached, and as she got about ten feet away, she announced matter-of-factly: "I need someone to hold this baby." My friends turned as one, in slow motion, with mouths agape to stare at me, the woman who just spent the last five minutes yammering on and on about wanting to hold a baby. 

I did not hesitate. I did not stop to wonder why a strange woman would walk up to other strange women and ask them to hold someone else's baby. Oh, no. That didn't seem at all weird to me at that second -- I jumped forward, reached out my arms and said, "Let me hold the baby."  The woman then said, "No, you don't understand. You'll need to hold this baby for an hour. Her mom is one of the actors in the drama coming up. She nurses. I don't know when she wants to eat next."  I didn't blink: "Give me the baby." 

And, so. I held a baby. She slept the entire time, so she didn't mind that I held her. I shared her, briefly. But, I guarded her as though she was my own. No one got more than 10 feet from me with that child. She was my job -- a divine appointment -- there was no question. When her mom swung by to say "thanks" and pick her up, I meant to tell her the story -- but I didn't get a chance. The table was busy and mom and baby melted away into the crowd. And my job was done. My bizarre desire to hold babies was gone. 

As I reflected on the conference on the way home, some of my hopes and expectations were blown away, and some hopes felt like they fell a bit flat, at least for me. And then I was reminded of that baby. Because someone was willing to hold her, her mom could be up on stage, in the spotlight, performing. And there is no question that the performance changed lives. I got to be a part of that -- standing in the back of the room, in the dark, with a sleeping baby in my arms.

And isn't that the way God works? That oftentimes, the most important things are the quiet things, the humble things, the things that are not flashy, are hard work, are dirty. And isn't that really where we want to be? Next to God? Doing the important things? 

If you feel like you've been doing the small things, the hard things, the dirty things, the unglamorous things, take heart. You count to the One who sees it all. And, in the end, He is the only one that matters.

  



1 comment

  1. LOVE this story! Somehow I missed this moment last year. I remember you holding the baby, but don't remember that you had a burning desire to do so. Praying for you all as you head up there to see what God has in store for this year. It's gonna be awesome! Wish I could be in two places at the same time. :)

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