Just being who I am - a lesson from snowdrops

The other week I went for a walk round a farm. The path started lovely and gravelled.  About half way round that ran out. I ended up picking my way through some pretty boggy patches and negotiating a field with two extremely friendly ponies who accompanied me the whole way across the field.  It was clearly 'event of the day' for them. Not many people made it across their boggy field. As I went, through the barbed wire fence I saw the most beautiful crop of perfectly pure white snowdrops that just seemed to shine out. It made me stop and gaze and take in how lovely they looked.

I asked God "Why did you put such beauty in such a hidden place?  I wonder if anyone has noticed them before I did just now."

I felt God say, "They give me glory just by being what they are - snowdrops. They are being what I made them to be in the place where they are planted and that brings me pleasure and glory even if no one notices them."

I felt He said the same was true for me too. He simply wants me to be who He made me to be in the place where He has planted me whether other people see that or not.

As I walked back into the village there were many more snowdrops that have probably been admired by many people.  Some people God seems to put in the limelight and many people see and admire what they do.  Others are very hidden and what they do is not seen, noted or praised.

The thing is to realise the value does not come from being noticed or prominent. It comes from being who God made you to be and doing what He has asked in the place He has put you.  And that gives Him great pleasure and brings Him glory.

Help me Lord to stop looking around and wanting others' callings; but rather to be content that being who I am and where I am is enough to bring You pleasure and glory. Amen.

The same but different - do things out of love

So often I think:

Should I be doing something different?

Should I be doing something 'more'?

God has been speaking to me that what He cares about more is the heart with which I do things rather than the amount of things I do or even exactly what it is I'm doing.

So often I'm rushing through the thing I'm doing in order to get onto the next thing. Always rushing on to get one more thing done.

I was brushing Charlotte's hair. She hates the tugs needed to get the knots out.  God showed me I needed to stop seeing it as another job on the list to get ticked off. But to see it as an opportunity to love her by slowing down just a little more to tease out those knots gently.

I can brush Charlotte's hair as a job.

Or I can do it as an act of love.

It can look almost imperceptibly different on the outside.

But the difference on the inside is huge.

It is huge to God. Because He looks on the heart.

And He says that whatever I do for the least of these I do for him.

I've been trying to remember that each day as I go through the many tasks of being a housewife and a mum. I can transform my day by doing each thing out of love for the person I'm doing it for and out of love for God.