Our Talents (1Peter 4:10-11)

We are born with a number of natural talents or "gifts" as those of us in the Church prefer to call them. These are the natural abilities each of us have been given according to what the Lord plans to accomplish in and through our lives. When we are "born again" and become children of God, the Holy Spirit will then dwell within us and give us one or more spiritual gifts.

As Christians, we are called to be servants and stewards of God. He bestows specific abilities to enable us to carry out His good work both locally and throughout the world. Our responsibility is to evaluate how we have been gifted and to prayerfully consider where our talents will be most helpful. Scripture gives a varied list of ministries through which to minister to others effectively (1Cor 12:5-7). Much of our work will take place outside the church building and may not even resemble "Christian service," but every God-directed use of our gifts and abilities serves Him.

We are perfectly free to use God's gifts to us in anyway we choose; yet, we should take seriously Jesus' warning in the parable about a man who gave money to three of His servants. Two of these servants invested their sums wisely and increased the monies they had been given, but the third man did absolutely nothing with his share. When the servants were called to account, their master was pleased with the first two who had increased their amounts, but he was angry with the one who had "wasted" his gift (Matt 25:14-30).

Someday every one of us will be called to give an account of how we used the gifts and talents given to us by our Master (Rom 14:12). If we desire to please the Lord we will need to identify our strengths and talents and make every effort to use them for the Lord. Looked at one way, our entire lives are given to us as gifts and God expects us to use our bodies and our lives in the very act of giving to others. We should be ever increasing the sum of our talents. Our lives should demonstrate to the world, a life lived for the kingdom. When we do that, our sum automatically increases. If we allow God to work through us, He will take the gift we've been given, no matter how small that amount might be, and will increase the amount. This act of increasing is in progress as long as we yield to the voice of the Holy Spirit Who makes the growth happen in the first place. If we just make ourselves available to Him, the Spirit will give us increase. God can reap a bountiful crop of righteousness out of our willingness to surrender our entire lives to Him. Our primary role in the process is simply to abide, to make ourselves available, and then to yield and surrender our individual wills unto the perfect will of our Lord. He will make the increase; we needn't really do anything at all. All we need to do is stand ready and willing to be used unto God's glory. We plant and water but it's God that makes things grow. And He chooses to do this through us. Isn't that incredible?! God has everything at His disposal and he chooses to use us! May we always be submissive unto Him. If we are willing, God will make us a mountain. If we are willing, God will open the floodgates and let the waters rush out. What a marvelous miracle! He takes a shriveled up, dead stick, applies His love to it, and then grafts it into the vine. His life flows through the once-shriveled stick, and He produces fruit for His kingdom.

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Michael is back to walking most of the time. His doctor said yesterday that he could start walking on it again. He will still use the wheelchair to go to the back of the house most of the time. It's a little sore today after having the external bar manipulated a bit yesterday. Dr. Smalley tilted the toe downward a bit so it wouldn't point up and rub the top of his shoe. That could be painful in the future if not fixed in the early stages while the joint is still bendable.

I had a very busy week and I survived! Hard to believe but I made it through. And Joann's advice to "just do one thing at a time" saved my sanity. When I looked at the whole week at a time, it looked impossible. But when I narrowed it down to just one thing at a time, it was really quite easily done and there was very little stress. Isn't it amazing how people can tell you the most obvious and simple thing and it can change your entire outlook on life? A week ago I was really stressing about all the things I was going to be faced with in that upcoming week, and just taking things one at a time, it was relatively easy.

My friend Kathleen and I are planning to get together on Wed and she's going to teach me the correct way to cast stitches onto a knitting needle. She's also got a DVD to loan me to watch before we get together. She'll give me the DVD on Sun and then I'll return it to her on Tues night.

I can't tell you how much fun I am having on Tues nights. Not only am I back with my beloved group at prayer meeting, but I'm actually socializing in the knitting group. It's just fun getting together. Kathleen has asked me if I'd be willing to give a devotional one of these Tues nights and I said of course. That reminds me that I have to give the congregational prayer on Sun during church. A select group was asked to pray for the congregation. It will be my first time getting up in front of everyone. I desperately need your prayers because I get so nervous being up front and knowing people are looking at me. Please pray that I won't faint from fear. When I have to get up and give deacon reports at the quarterly meetings I just about die. And now I'm going to get up there and do this before the entire congregation! What was I thinking!!! Actually I was thinking of the awesome opportunity to pray for my brothers and sisters in Christ. I am honored to have been asked to participate. Just, Lord, take my fear ... my stage fright ... away and let me concentrate solely on you. Please pray for me.

My hair is still growing. Ever so slowly but eventually I may be able to go around without hats and do-rags. Then I'll start stressing out about not being able to get my hair to do anything. I'm still grieving Mulder and I'm wondering how long it will be before I can do things in my kitchen without grieving him. Whenever I was in the kitchen, he was always in there with me, climbing my legs and meowing at me until I'd finally stop and pick him up and give him a big Mulder hug. This morning I got up and was fine. Then M wanted sausage and biscuits for breakfast and I went into the kitchen to cook the breakfast. And Wham! I got slapped with the cold, hard reality that Mulder will never again bug me in the kitchen. I will never again be able to hug my beautiful baby boy. Life can be so cruel and unfair! I miss him terribly. Terribly!

Our weather has turned off the heat these days. But I guess considering that it's November it's about time for that to happen. The days are warm still but the nights are cold. My electric blanket feels so good at night with the cold, night air coming in the open widow above my head. Michael may try sleeping in the bed again tonight. I've have a week and a half of having the bed all to myself and now I'm going to have to get used to the light being on until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning while M reads. It's so nice to just be able to go to bed and turn off the light and go to sleep. My problem is that when I'm ready to go to bed, I'm ready to go to sleep. I want the light off. But life is a game of give and take and I guess it's time for me to give a little for awhile. I can barely manage to stay awake long enough to read my devotionals. In fact, for the last two or three nights, I've not been able to read them all. I read one and then my eyes start crossing and everything goes out of focus and I know it's time to go to sleep.

We had our first 4:00 pm Deacon Board meeting last night and I kind of liked the time change. It felt good to get home and still have some of the day left. The Executive Board meeting next week isn't until 7:30 and it's quite often 9:00 or 9:30 before we get out of there.

I went across the river and did our monthly shopping all by myself on Wed. Usually M and I divide up the list and I get half and he gets half. We finish in half the time and half the trouble. Doing it all by myself was exhausting and it took me several hours. Of course I spent some of that time by myself trying to determine whether or not I wanted to buy a knitting book. I didn't buy it and now wish I had.

Well that pretty well brings you up to date in the goings on in my life. It feels great to be able to blog again!!! Take care and stay close to the Lord. Until next time...