Time Out for Women – mom's musings

Are you using your gifts to melt butter? That’s a question that I’ve been considering ever since I attended Time Out for Women last month.

At the conference, Sheri Dew told a story about her grandmother whose relatives bought her a nice microwave. This was a long time ago when microwaves were much more expensive than they are today, and the children and grandchildren wanted to make sure that Grandma was enjoying the newest contraption. They were quite surprised to learn that she was using it to melt butter. Period.

Using her gift for turning all sorts of stories into applications for our lives, Sheri Dew suggested that many people do just that: Use their unique talents to melt butter when they are capable of doing so much more. I know dozens of people who could prepare feasts (metaphorically speaking) but are stuck in the melting butter stage. Are you one of them?

I’m thinking of a friend of mine in Myrtle Beach who has a phenomenal musical talent. When younger and in the busy stage of raising children, she didn’t have time or opportunity to put this tremendous musical gift to use. However, she began playing the organ at church and would practice, practice, practice. Her aptitude grew, and she began playing the drums. Over the years, she has become a musical virtuoso (in my opinion).

My musical friend not only plays in a lot of gigs, but she’s also teaching her young grandson how to play percussion instruments. He’s got the gift too! When I see videos of this little child playing, I can’t help but notice all of the equipment around him. When I first met his grandmother, she didn’t have any of that, but with persistence, dedication, and the strong desire to make things happen, she purchased all the necessary pieces. She never gave up her dream or let her gifts lay fallow.

My friend the musician is doing a lot more than melting butter. What about you? Are there some things you want to do but can’t or won’t? Is it because you can’t see the possibilities, or is there some other reason? It’s a shame to let a marvelous creation, whether a microwave or a person, stop at melting butter.

You might call it mustard colored, but I see my new journal as saffron, a beautiful shade of golden yellow. I bought it at the Time Out for Women Conference in Columbia this past weekend, and I’m reserving it to record thoughts and impressions that take me “higher.”

Let me explain. The conference theme was based on a verse from the Old Testament, Isaiah 55:9: “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” The moment I read “so are my ways higher than your ways” on the front of the journal, I recalled a chilly autumn afternoon as I sat beside my father’s bedside.

My family and I had come home for the weekend, and upon our arrival, I learned that my father had been hospitalized for an upper respiratory ailment, the same one that would take his life years later. As I walked into the room that afternoon, I could see that he was sleeping peacefully so I didn’t disturb him. This was back in the days before e-readers and iPhones so I was stuck with sitting there with my thoughts, none of them good. Having never seen my father so fragile and weak, I was distraught with worry and concern.

I picked up a Gideon Bible and began thumbing through it. Almost immediately I came across the verse from Isaiah. I read it again…and then again. “Hmm,” I thought. “This is so true. I don’t like it, but it’s true nonetheless. He’s God, and I’m just a mortal living down here on Earth.”

Since that Saturday afternoon in my father’s hospital room, I’ve quipped those phrases to almost any and everyone who is suffering and can make no sense of it. My precious daughter had a stillborn baby, and there I was with, “For as the heavens….” I don’t know whether that comforted her or not, but it was the only thing that made sense to me (us) at the time. More times that I can recount, I’ve thought, “The heavens and His ways are higher. You just don’t have the big picture, Jayne.”

But here’s what happened Saturday. The light came on and now I see that verse in a different and more enlightened way. I often tell people to “go for it,” to use their gifts, and now I can see how this scripture applies to positive aspects of our lives too. We can’t possibly know or see what He does, but we can be certain that His plans and thoughts are higher than ours.

When I was a younger person, I often heard the expression, “I know I’m somebody ’cause God don’t make no junk.” At the time, I thought it was catchy and cool, both because of the way the phrase was worded and because of the sentiment itself. This weekend’s conference echoed basically the same thing. You and I are somebody. Isaiah 43:1 says, “I have called thee by name; thou art mine.” We are His. He has plans for us and thoughts about us. We need to find out what they are and move forward in faith.

Here on Earth there is sickness, frailty, contention, distress, and aging. There are weeds and spiders and sour milk and cancer. Stress abounds and so do chaos, loss, tragedy, difficult people, and things that go bump in the night. Heaven is higher. That’s where He is with His thoughts, ways, and plans for us.

When heartache comes along (as it surely will), the knowledge that His thoughts and ways are higher than ours can be comforting. What’s equally awesome is knowing that the same thing is true for positive events. To reach “higher,” we might have to stretch a little, but that’s a post for another day.