My hands were sweaty and my mouth was dry. I wish I felt butterflies in my stomach, but it was more like birds flying from one rib cage to the next.
I sat in a crowded room watching a popular United States Senator as he stood center stage giving a speech. I jotted down his words, frantic I would miss something of value for our small town newspaper. I wasn’t qualified to be there. I was filling in for my more experienced editor. The senator had been on CNN the day before and Fox News earlier in the week. Those interviewers knew the right points to address, but my scribbled questions were written down as Sesame Street blared in the background. I prayed they made sense.
And when his speech concluded, grown men clamored for his attention. Cameras flashed as this popular man posed shoulder to shoulder with admirers. When he finished, we sat in comfortable chairs eye to eye. Luckily my nerves subsided and he was kind and easy to talk to. But in his presence I couldn’t help but feel insignificant, this man of influence in an expensive suit and a watchful entourage. And I rested in my size seven clearance flats bought at Target. I felt for a pen at the bottom of my purse. My hand slid past the rubber end of a pacifier and a slick plastic bag of diaper wipes.
And for a moment I wished I was a person of influence, that I was wealthy or authoritative. Or maybe I wished I was taller or that I had a more impressive resume. I reveled in my own ordinary skin. Thoughts surfaced of how I often shrink into the background and I don’t raise my hand to answer questions in large groups.
And as I backed out of the parking lot that day God quietly reminded me that there is great significance in my own little world.
As wives and mothers our words are weighty. Strung together they strengthen and build character. When our world screams that is beauty is of the utmost importance, we have the chance to speak truth, that beauty is woven through stepping aside and putting others needs before our own. Beauty is giving instead of taking. Beauty loves when it’s not deserved.
Proverbs 31: 28-29
Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.
Our value and significance will never come from a job or an accomplishment. Who we truly are comes from a wooden, splintered cross, thrust into the ground. And it’s there we surrender who we are, our nice and pleasantries alongside our greed and selfishness and we give it to Him. And in return God so graciously gives us a life of meaning and purpose and significance.
By Amanda Dodson, amanda d
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