I had my tailor come over yesterday because I needed him to redo some of my outfits as I have lost a bunch of weight, yay! My tailor is one of those roving guys who makes life easier by coming to you when you need him to and delivers once everything is ready. Anyway, I have a corner of area in my bedroom where I store fabric or stuff I want him to fix so when he comes, it’s all in one place and easy for me to find because hmmmm, let’s just say I am not the neatest of people LOL!
So I go and I am picking stuff and getting ready for him to come and I open this gift bag that I had gotten for my birthday in February. Context; for my birthday, I went out with two sets of friends for dinner (Covid and all) and you know how people come with gifts and for ease of carrying, it’s all put in one or two of the bigger gift bags. I had quite a few gifts, I am blessed and have such amazingly kind friends. Now I love fashion, if you see any of my pics, you will see and I just love the African fabric so I got a bunch of gorgeous fabric among other things. When I got home that night, I opened my gifts and loved each of them then put them away, with the fabrics in my tailor ‘corner’ so to speak. Fast forward to yesterday, I’m looking through and I come across a gift that I had apparently not opened, I don’t even remember seeing it! To be expected as I was doing the opening at 3 am in the morning after the birthday dinner LOL! I open this gift and it a lovely, sleeveless, white fabric jacket that goes all the way to the ankles with a beautiful blue fabric trim. It is gorgeous! Yet, I somehow, for over two months, completely missed it! It was there, I just didn’t know it was there.
It made me think about the gifts and abilities God has given us, gifts freely given that are deep inside us. We know we have gifts, because God gifted each of us ever so uniquely, but since we hardly ever go looking inside, truly looking, they stay hidden, for months, years, decades, for some even maybe a whole lifetime. And isn’t that the saddest part? To have an amazing gift, skill or talent but then go through life struggling to do what everyone else is doing until its too late?
The work of looking inward, while hard, is the path to finding some of those hidden gems that God has given us and all it takes is us looking and they will come to the surface. It is said that our gift will make space for us. What a lot of us usually miss, unintentionally, is that, once we figure out that gift is, it’s a process to uncover it, refine it, finesse it and finally reap the fruits from it. That process is often uncomfortable, difficult, requiring more from us than we have ever given before. So most of us, don’t even want to begin the process, we just drift through life missing the essence of what it is to truly LIVE.
There is never a wrong moment to look inside and call on His grace to show you that gorgeous gem that lies inside you, that will help guide you to your purpose and to have the strength to pick it up, unwrap it, and make the most use of it like the man with the five talents in the Mathew 25. In a basic sense, that is what I did with my beautiful gift, I unwrapped it, washed it, ironed it and put it one and yes, I looked amazing in it!
We all get one shot at this life and at the end of it all, it will be you and only you that stands before the Father to account for all the gifts He gave you, used and unused. I hope you have courage and the faith to make that account the best it could be!
The Musings of a Wandering Mind 