When I thought I was going to die of melanoma, I found myself mourning the person I could have been. I kept asking God, "What significant thing am I supposed to do? I know I was put here for a purpose. Show it to me, before it's too late!"
One of my favorite TV shows at the time was Joan of Arcadia, about a teenager who saw God in the form of different people. He usually had a task for her to blindly oblige to, despite her objections. The episode that awakened me was one in which Joan wanted "a thing," a thing that made her special. Her boyfriend had art. Her brother had science. Everyone she knew seemed to be good at something. And she wanted that special thing that made her stand out.
God told her to work on the yearbook, so she thought, "This is it! This is my THING! I'm going to excel at it. People will notice me! I'll be Joan of the photographer!" Her stint at the yearbook turned out to be one disappointment after another. She was assigned to taking out the trash.
Then, in the trash, she found a poem that her friend wrote. She made copies of it and littered the campus with it, so that her friend's poem could be read by everyone. The poem was anonymously written, and her deed was anonymously performed. But it showed her friend how much she cared for her, and it enlightened the whole school.
That, as it turned out, was her thing—a small deed for that moment. I realized that I no longer had to strive for "a thing," or regret that I never had one. I realized that living purposely in each moment, appreciating others, showing them love, speaking truth into their lives, just being there when needed by them—that is the essence of everyone's "big thing." Everyone's big thing is a lot of little things. It's living in the moment. Living each and every moment as Christ.
Our obscurity is our biggest blessing, and can be a multitude of blessings to the world.
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