Extraordinary looks like a styrofoam cup

I just had a birthday. I am smack dab in the middle. I really think that 44 is about as middle as you can get which is causing me to reflect on all that has come before, where I am now, and wonder. This contemplative mood (doesn’t that sound better than a mid-life crisis?) is being aided by my first-born touring universities. His search for what comes next took him to my old stomping grounds. Asbury University is where I learned so much about serving Jesus, where I gained the skills to live out my calling, and found my life-long partner in crime.

In those days I really believed that God would use me to change the world. Even now I can still hear the creak of my chapel seat and recall the challenge to follow our calling – to live out “extraordinary” for the sake of the world. I learned at Asbury that God could use ordinary people (maybe even someone like me). In my 20’s that was my goal. In my 30’s I might have mocked my naive 20 something self, but my dreams were similar – do great things for the Kingdom. I just started to wonder when the world changing might really happen.

Yesterday, I sat beside the hospital bed of one of my 6 children. Another spinal tap was needed to give him medicine that might make him stronger. At that moment, it simply was making him miserable. He asked me to walk with him to the procedure room, so I pulled on the sterile jumpsuit and walked the hall beside his bed. I didn’t have much to offer him. I got a styrofoam cup of ice water from the nurse’s station. Held his hand. Carried a book in my purse in case he felt up for reading.

This is not where I thought I would be at 40 something. When I talked about changing the world, I meant spreading the Good News to whole people groups. I thought about changing broken systems and advocating for families until no child was left behind.

But, I wonder if extraordinary looks like a styrofoam cup of water, an offered hand, a book, or a white jumpsuit. For all my dreams of following a calling, changing the world, and making a difference – maybe it all boils down to the ordinary daily things that I do for this one child. For that matter, maybe it is every ordinary thing that I choose to do with love on any regular old day.

God can use people like me to do extraordinary things that actually are quite ordinary.

On this birthday, I ate stollen bread and pondered the course of my life. I clearly see the ordinary way my life is turning out. The homeschool lessons, dishes washed, meals cooked, art projects I clean up after, errands run….the hands I hold, smiles I give out, music I turn on, tears I shed, and boundaries I hold in place. If i do these things with love, then they become the extraordinary moments that God can use to shape my heart and dare I say change my world.

I can not find a family for every orphan in Asia, but I am a mom to these 6. Some might mock this ordinary venture to love these dear ones well. I would imagine I would have done the same years ago. But somehow at this middle place, I can see more clearly that greatness comes out of ordinary small things.

Lord, help me embrace all of the small ordinary things that when lived from the context of your love can make an extraordinary difference.