There is nothing special about me. I am just an ordinary woman with average talent. I gave up work to stay home and raise my children, so I was never featured as Employee of the Month. I can do many things but nothing exceptionally well so as to stand out or get recognized.
Yet, life is not so much about talent and ability as it is about opening the door when opportunity knocks. It is about availability, about staying open and humble to whatever God chooses to bring onto your path. It is about pushing past obstacles and seizing the moment.
My life has been a succession of moves, as my husband’s job re posted our family on average every two years. Knowing this, I never had the luxury of taking my time settling in or choosing to sit back and observe the events going on around me.
From an early age, my life has revolved around serving God and desiring to let him make a difference through me in the world. Therefore, knowing my stay was short, I knew if I did not get involved in the community and church immediately, then that opportunity would be missed.
God has blessed me with many opportunities, none greater than that of raising three precious loved little children and being a wife and friend to a man I love.
My opportunities have included travel, making friends with those of many cultures and backgrounds, and serving God in his church around the world. None of these are greater or lesser than my involvement at present at my church in Southern California. It is all about what I do with these opportunities.
Some opportunities are big, some small. Some require a huge commitment, some only a week, as in my week spent with a stranger: written about in a previous blog titled Life, Death and Reuniting. Some are as small as a cup of coffee with a friend, a meal bought for a homeless person, or holding a baby. None are greater than another.
I have regrets over opportunities passed over. For once an opportunity is gone, there is often no way of returning to it. Yet I cannot let my heart or mind go there and so choose to let these opportunities missed serve as lessons learned.
With my personality and desire to serve comes the need to continually seek the balance between following where God wants me and taking on too much. Many times when opportunity knocks, God’s desire is that we open that door, speak with the caller, and referring them on to those better suited for that task. It is a balance never quite found but continually worked towards.
I thank God for opportunities he has sent my way, for in opening the doors, I have been blessed beyond measure and feel rich and content.
I only get one chance at this life and pray continually that ‘I will make the most of every opportunity’, according to Colossians 4:5.
And I pray, as in the story of the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-30, that one day my Master will say to me, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!”