Random spurts throughout the day is kind of how I'm doing everything right now. That's how we're fitting in homeschool, how I'm cooking, when we do French homework, when I'm reading to Nora, when I'm pulling in laundry, how I'm preparing for English classes, when I catch up on emails, when Matt and I talk, and when I'm meeting with students.
These precious men and women, let me tell you.
God's always working on this heart of mine, and heavens, has he given me one for these men and women that doesn't come from myself. Their stories alone are enough for a lifetime, their struggles and celebrations and hearts fill my midnight-feeding-thoughts, my early morning prayers.
The Lord doesn't have to use us one ounce, does He. Often I see Him doing His work, and I am in awe of how He carries, how He connects, how He brings it all together, how He moves, how mighty His hand and how sufficient He is.
But sometimes, sometimes He graciously and equally astoundingly uses us in His work. I sat Sunday wrestling a happy toddler in tulle, crammed on a bench between our cherished visiting professor and new missionaries, and translated for them God-using-Matt in a front-of-hundreds type way. He powerfully and simply preached a "no more than one way" message, speaking into the divisions, hatreds, and lack of true love that 1 John 2 claims continues to hold those who are in the light in the darkness. The Gospel was clearly spoken, hearts were moved, God's work.
And while I rarely pray He'll use me in terrifying pulpit ways, I've been learning to pray for and seek Him to be at work in everyday, random spurt ways in my own life, and yesterday I got to see that.
I sat with a new student for an hour leading up to chapel. We'd been having trouble getting our schedules connected, I'd only met him once for a few minutes before, and so when he finally plopped down across from my desk yesterday afternoon, I was taken aback by the ginormous jagged, fresh scars webbing his face, jutting down his neck.
Something almost killed you not long ago, sir, I thought, heading into my normal questions about his childhood and testimony and trying not to stare.
His whole story, still in the middle, is powerful, and I'm pulling all my random moments to put it together in a cohesive way--can't wait to share it with you soon--but yesterday God used my little prayer from my hall closet this weekend.
Someone, I don't even remember who, gave me a bunch of cans of formula this summer, and I brought them to Haiti in case anything happened with Ben, just in case we needed it. This weekend as I was cleaning out a hall closet, I was stacking the forgotten cans up when I thought, "I need to get rid of these. We don't need them and they'll go bad and there's no point storing them."
I played with the idea of just tossing them (I get a little toss happy when it comes to cleaning), but instead prayed Saturday afternoon that the Lord would send me someone for them, and make it clear. I fingered each can and prayed that God would use them to glorify Himself, and then honestly felt a bit silly and moved on.
But as Dumont unwove a series of chilling stories (and gruesome pictures to boot) that have been his reality this past year, we came to his little son, a week older than Benjamin--I smiled when he told me his name--little David. He told me of his wife's surgeries since (cue more awful photos) leaving her totally unable to feed David, and of the mounting challenges in his life, "and now they tell me he has to have powdered milk, not cows milk, something the doctor called called en-fa-meel," he recalled, "and it is so expensive and almost impossible to find, and it only lasts 2-3 days, and then he needs another can, and she needs another surgery, and we don't know what we're going to do. But you don't need to know all that for my story, I'm sorry, back to my testimony..."
I was pretty surprised to have my silly formula prayer answered so quickly, and Dumont was equally surprised to be heading home from a seminary interview with a bag full of infant formula, his specific need and private prayer answered by the God who Sees, but I was humbly reminded by our powerful God that He can work how He will, and WILL. That He will use whatever He wants however He wants, and that as He feeds the sparrows and clothes the flowers and provides the hours, He might just choose to use the little I have, the little I am, how He Will. Praise the Lord.
It might not be a pulpit today for you or me, or ever. It might not be the Gospel words.
But God can use it. That which we have, even ourselves, by His grace it can become the cold water poured for another that Jesus said He was handed. It can be the clothing His back needed that we gave to someone else in another form, our time can be the visits to prison that Jesus said were made to visit Him (Matthew 25).
So let's give it to Him today, not that He needs our hands open to do His work.
I'm praying my children, I'm praying my closets, my wallets, my energies, I'm praying my midnight hours and my quirky gifts, my labors of love and my accidental service, I'm praying my marriage, my-perspective valuables and my-perspective worthlessnesses, I'm praying them His, to be used how and if He will, for His glory, and begging that He'll just help me be quiet enough, humble enough, trusting enough to know what and when and how.
That a gruesomely scarred man, that a badly bandaged mother, that a frazzled co-worker, that a burdened waitress, that a broken child, that a hungry homeless, that a wealthy suited, that a third world, that a first world, that a passing anyone might one day see that she is loved by the Father, who has answered her prayers, that he is pursued by his Creator, who has seen and heard.
The Gospel forumla.
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