Everyday Masterpiece: Or why I do what I do
Jun 10, 2020You guys, I am gearing up for a new season of ministry. A new website is coming. (Yay!) A new newsletter is in the works. (Woohoo!) And maybe one or two other new things that you’ll just have to wait to hear about……….
And as I prepare for the new, I’m reflecting on what I have already been doing over the past few years. In 2015 I launched my website with the tagline, “Finding the masterpiece in the everyday.” It was a message I hoped would encourage others, but it was also a reminder to myself.
When Grace was born, I thought my every dream was coming true. Two years of infertility ended with the birth of my sweet daughter. A chance to be a stay-at-home mom. (And if I’m being totally honest, a chance to quit a job I didn’t love…) But it turns out my dream job of being a stay-at-home mom was not nearly as glamorous as you might be imagining. It involved a whole lot of diapers and bottles, and not much sleep (nor quite as many showers as I may have liked, strictly speaking). And not once did I feel the need to hang my college degree over the changing table. “I think I might be doing this whole motherhood thing wrong,” I grumbled to myself. “Everyone says being a mom is the most important job in the world, but I sure feel small right now.”
Then I came across Ephesians 2:10 in the New Living Translation: “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” My heart raced. I’d read this verse many times—I had even memorized it—but never with the word MASTERPIECE. I mean, come on. With little kids in the house, I saw a whole lot of arts and crafts. But most of it ended up… well, in my very special filing spot. (Ahem, the trash.) Don’t judge me. If I hadn’t thrown most of it away, we would all have drowned in it long ago! Honestly. They made a lot of STUFF. Very few masterpieces. And now here was the Bible saying that we are God’s masterpiece. We—that includes me, right?
Well, I got tripped up on the second half of the verse, the part where we were created to do good things. That sounded a lot more like “move to Africa and adopt 25 orphans” or “start a non-profit to end world hunger” than “run to Giant Eagle so I can make dinner tonight.” I mean, was I really doing good things? Could I really be called a MASTERPIECE if I was “just” a mom or “just” a wife or “just” a girl in rural Ohio?
A few months later, I read Romans 12 in The Message, where Paul declares, “Take your everyday ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.” An everyday, ordinary life. I definitely had one of those! You mean, I could offer THAT to God?
And that was the birth of my mantra: Finding the masterpiece in the everyday. I didn’t have to do Big Important Things, I just had to take whatever God put before me and give it back to Him.
We spend a lot of time worrying about our calling. We want to know what God wants us to DO. It turns out that God is far more concerned with who He wants us to BE. And we can BE His masterpiece wherever we are, even in the middle of our everyday, ordinary lives.
With all of the new things that are coming, this message remains the same. In the days and weeks and months to come, whatever we chat about here or on social media or in the newsletter or anywhere else, I hope that is the message you take away. You were created on purpose, for a purpose. You are a masterpiece in your everyday, ordinary life, if you place it before God as an offering.
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