On Wednesday nights I work with the student ministry at my church. My husband and I have had to create a work around to balance this with our daughters and with his work schedule. It’s can be a tad complicated some weeks, but all-in-all, it seems to have worked—if I get my timing correct.
You see, I have to make sure I don’t lose track of time because there is that precarious balance of prepping and cooking dinner, ensuring naps occur but not too long, then gauging the travel time as to not get caught in rush hour madness that would guarantee that I was late.
Once particular afternoon, I thought I was doing well. The girls were starting to get up and I was getting dinner together so it would be finished cooking well before we had to leave—making one less thing for my husband to have to deal with when he got home. Then…yeah then…I don’t even know what actually happened. Somehow or another, I sliced my finger—badly.
Initially I thought it was nothing major, but I couldn’t get it to stop bleeding. I tried calling my husband, but he didn’t answer. I tried calling my sister-in-law (who is a nurse), but she didn’t answer. I tried calling my mother-in-law (who is also a nurse), but she didn’t answer. I was starting to freak out, but I didn’t want to show that to my daughters so I over exaggerated my perceived calmness resulting in deep breaths and my voice octave raising slightly to ensure my tone stayed gentle and my volume remained normal-ish. I didn’t know what to do. Should I go to the ER? I didn’t want to deal with the ER (and everything that goes with that i.e. the bill). It was just a stupid finger for crying out loud!
I end up getting calls back from everyone, drove myself (with my girls) to a walk-in clinic where my husband had already arrived and is getting the paperwork filled out. My finger was still bleeding.
Because of how it was cut, stitches were out of the question, so they cauterize it (sorry if this story is grossing you out. It has a really good point, I swear.)
I had this massive, bright blue bandage on my left pointer finger and once the numbing drug wore off, it hurt—a lot.
I felt like such a baby because it was just a finger! My husband had survived 4 knee surgeries; my mom had gone through more than that. I gave birth to two, good-sized babies but I’m fussing over a stupid finger?!
So. Annoying.
1 Corinthians 12 says:
“For as the body is one and has many members, but all members of that one body, being many are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were baptized into one body…for in fact the body is not one member but many….if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not part of the body, is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be? But now indeed there are many members, yet one body.” (1 Corinthians 12:12-14, 16-20, NKJV)
It’s all too easy to dismiss one measly finger. However, I didn’t realize how the tendons in that finger help the hand and thus, when the finger hurts, the hand is also greatly handicapped.
We do the same with our position—whether in the church or in life. We say things like, “I’m just a mom,” but the impact that a mom can have is eternal. If we don’t fill the position that God has called us to, it will either not be filled or will be filled by someone less adequate.
We are uniquely gifted to do amazing things for God’s kingdom. It is vital that we don’t begin to compare. Just because someone is called to pastor over a congregation, they are not any more important than the person who is called to teach a classroom full of students. The person called to travel overseas to evangelize to nations that have never heard of Jesus is no more important than the person called to serve meals at an inner-city soup kitchen.
We all have our roles, and just like my finger being out of commission became a big deal, just imagine how big of a deal it would be if you chose not to fulfill your calling.
Stop minimizing the role that you play! Stop being jealous of the roles that others play! You have been created to great and mighty things for the Kingdom of God, whether or not you see those results in your lifetime. The impact that you have today could be cataclysmicly significant in twenty, forty, or one-hundred years from now–WHO KNOWS!
My role may only seem to have the eternal significance of a pointer finger on my non-dominant hand. But that finger could type the words that change someone’s mind about their relationship with God. That finger could point to someone in a crowd and remind them of their worth and identity. That finger could be part of the hand that holds the hands of two precious little girls that rock my world. That finger, while little, is vitally important.
So are you.
Becca Ramirez 