Doing My Part
Honestly, I’ve been hearing about Ethiopia for quite awhile now. My sister-in-laws visited for the first time when I was dating my now-husband. I saw the pictures. I heard the stories. It mattered, but it didn’t really change anything for me. Five years later, I met Henok. He sat across from me at a kitchen table and told me about Carry 117. It all clicked. I learned about his process, his vision and his hopes for the company. As I listened, something changed. There’s just something about a story becoming real that ignites action.
I don’t feel like a particularly extraordinary person. I often feel like my skills have little to no impact on the world as a whole. I am not a Henok, or at least I don’t feel that way. And if I’m being honest, feeling that way gets in the way of me taking action.
How often do we feel like unless we have something substantial to offer, what’s the point? This is a lie. It keeps us complacent, immobile and ineffective. You have something to offer and so do I. It’s a matter of figuring out what that something is. For me, it’s writing and editing. That still doesn’t feel as significant as some other skills or gifts, but it’s what I’ve got. And isn’t that what God asks of us? Aren’t we supposed to use what we have for His purposes?
As 1 Corinthians 12:12-31 describes, the Christian family is a body with each person making up a different part of that body. Each part matters. We can be bummed we aren’t an eye or a hand, or we can own the part we are and offer it up to God to use.
I think often times we make volunteering too difficult. We want our skill to be snazzier or look more impressive. Don’t make this difficult. Offer what you have.
Meeting Henok and hearing for myself what God is doing through Carry 117 truly prompted me to do my part. This is the part I was designed to do. What part were you designed for?
