Do I matter?

Trying to be ever alert for the slightest nudge from God, I got the second of two almighty knockout punches this week. And a great and unwelcome revelation of the error of my ways…

I should have heeded the first sign but I didn’t want to. A lovely young woman was leaving work and had invited me to her leaving party. As the day came nearer I started to make excuses to myself. It’s twenty miles away, we can’t afford it, my husband needs me to cook his tea...
But the real reason was that I didn’t think I’d be missed. Didn’t think I really counted. With the fifty other people invited who would notice me.

The next day my friend said to me, “I’m so glad I made the effort to go. A dozen of us had to split the cost of a buffet for fifty as no one turned up.”  Well, I felt sick. I couldn’t make it right. I apologised but…

I know I matter to God. My name is written on his hand. Sometimes I can’t seem to get that I matter to other people too.

This week my church had thirty visitors for tea. The Pastor had mentioned that she might need some help. My mum was making cakes. Again I thought that there would be lots of people to help - the real important church members would turn up and I wouldn’t be needed. Poor mum popped down with the cakes, found Sarah alone making sandwiches and ended up serving sixty cups of tea and clearing up.

I don’t know when or how I started to feel so negative about myself. I know I would have been wanted at both occasions and would have enjoyed them. But I also know that it’s going to be hard to convince myself that I’m really wanted when the next invitation or request comes.

Here’s my plan. I hope it works. Paul says the church is a body. So even if I’m the tiniest smelly little toe, if I’m not there I will be missed. If God provides the opportunity for me to serve and the time free to do so, then I will serve.

12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
 15 Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
1 Corinthians

Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands Isaiah 49 16

 linking up with Michelle at Hear it, Use it.