*Five Minute Friday is an initiative set up by Lisa-Jo Baker over at Surprised by Motherhood. It has now been taken over by Kate over at Heading Home. The basic premise is to take the word Kate gives and write, non-stop for 5 minutes. Then you stop and post. Read more about it here. This October, I am taking part in a series based on this called “31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes”, in which we commit to writing from the prompt as usual, but everyday rather than just on a Friday. Read more here.
Offer
GO
Don’t ever believe you have nothing to offer the world.
I’ve been there, as have many people, especially teenagers. Especially teenage girls.
We’ve looked in the mirror, we’ve stared at our friends, we’ve pored over magazines, and we’ve felt worthless.
Women in particular are prone to compare. I have made myself a victim to this for much of my life. I have given in to it too easily, always longing for what I don’t seem to have, instead of focusing on what I do have – the blessings, as well as what I myself have to offer.
So can I suggest something? Can I suggest that instead of wishing we were something we aren’t, and instead of longing for gifts we haven’t been given, we thank God for what makes us us.
I am someone who tends to be naturally quite good at a lot of things. It makes me a quick learner, but it also means that I have a tendency to get easily frustrated if I don’t get things perfect straight away. I look around at others and wonder why they can do something so well and I can’t. Maybe I could with practice and determination. But then again, maybe I have to face that there are things that I am not good at, that I am not gifted in, that I am not called to.
How much time have I wasted in forgetting this? What if I simply focused instead on what I am truly called to, what I know God has blessed me with, and thanked Him by appreciating and using it, rather than wishing it were something else?
So today I thank God for what I do have to offer. Because it is something no other person could. I am irreplaceable, but if I spend my life wishing I was someone else, then perhaps I will never truly fulfil my own purpose.
What is it you have to offer today? What are your blessings, your gifts? You have them, I promise. You are not worthless. We all have something to offer to God, to each other, to the world. It just might not be what we were expecting.
“Be patient with your own imperfections.”
– Francois de Salles
STOP
