Dorcas or Deborah...

Lord, for so long, probably all my life, I have striven to be a Deborah. A leader. A spokesperson. In the limelight. On the stage. I feel comfortable on the stage. At home. I was probably the only person ever to love Public Speaking in college. And my momma told me I talked so much as a child that she wished on me to have one just like me to talk my ears off(and thank you Momma, I have three, so much so that sometimes I just look at them and ask them can they just give me five minutes please!). As you are shaping me Lord, testing me, trying me, molding me into this new person that doesn't where the cloak of her past anymore, I am finding out who I am more and more. Funny how when the blinders come off and you can feel and see and perceive things correctly, nothing looks familiar at all. I am beginning to not recognize me accept for the things I used to love to do as a child. You are taking me back to the roots of who you first meant for me to be before the world took over and soiled me, soiled my heart, my vision. You are reminding me of the things I used to love to do as a child before the things others wanted me to do were forced on my life. I have written, sang, and drawn since I was very little and those things are the only things that have stuck with me throughout. I love to write because it is my release. I love to sing because I absolutely love to. I had almost forgotten that you put these things in me since I was little for a reason. For so long I have striven to be that Deborah who is a strong leader and everyone looks up to. I wonder now if I have only tried to be her for the wrong reasons. Maybe I felt so unloved and rejected and insecure as a child and even as an adult, that I felt the need to be a somebody. It is a very uncomfortable thing to try to wear someone elses skin and I have tried to all my life thinking that I wasn't good enough in my own for anyone to notice or care. How foolish. How deceptive of the enemy. My skin is the only skin that fits me, the only skin that is comfortable. I heard a quote that said, "don't try to be someone else, they are already taken". I cannot tell you what it meant for me this last Sunday for the Lord to speak to my heart as He has been so faithfully doing lately. Still striving to be a Deborah I whispered up to Him "Oh, God make me a Deborah" and He gently spoke back "but you are not a Deborah, you are a Dorcas to the Deborah". For a moment it was a hard pill to swallow. I wanted to be on the stage. I wanted to do something great for you Lord! A Dorcas! Surely, you can't mean me. Not the strap on your seat belt, cause it's going to be a wild ride person that I am. It's not even my personality God and there is no glory in it!! AAAHHHHH, there we go. For the first time I heard myself say it. There is no glory in it. EXACTLY!!! God isn't looking for anymore Superstars in the world today. There are plenty of those to go around. What He wants is someone to have a compassionate heart for His people and for the lost who are willing to step off the stage and into the highways and byways. Can I tell you I was sick! Pride had overtaken me from a long time of not knowing who I was in Him and the need to be accepted. It was never truly for Him that I wanted to be there. And not to mention, He knew what He had given me to work with and He knew what I was best suited for. You see, Dorcas is special. She was a rare find. She took what God had given her in the ability to sew and she used it daily for Him in touching the lives of so many who were in need, so much so that they grieved her back to life...lol. Not many people are willing to give up the limelight and being seen and heard to work behind the scenes. I can say that, because I have been one of them. So, when He first said Dorcas, I didn't like it. The more He began to show me Dorcas, the more I began to understand His heart, His desire. How often does a woman offer the most meaningful service to God by doing what seems to be the least important to the world? She did. She offered what He gave her back to Him at His feet everydayof her life. Her whole life was worship to Him and she didn't care about any of the glory. She presented Him with it all. He gave me the ability to write. I didn't like it. I have to sit still and be quiet to do that and that goes against my nature. But if I sit and look at what talents I have, I have to use them for Him in the way He desires and not how I desire. So long I have been so selfish keeping back what He has given. I have been told that my gift is of an encourager. I have tried so hard to be so many other things than that. To me the words I give to others to lift them up are just words that He gives me, they come easy and it is hard for me to understand others who cannot say the first encouraging thing because it is hard for them to find the words. Finding the words has never been hard. I just always thought this gift was insignificant. Pastor preached last Sunday that the encourager was a prophet in his own rights and was great in the eyes of the Lord and that the encourager gift was very significant for without encouragement where would hope be? Encouragers spread hope into a hopeless world. One kind word can be make all the difference in someone's life. I am so worn out from trying to be something I was never suited to be. I have never felt so comfortable beginning to wear my own skin made just for me. There is a peace and a rest that comes with the accepting of who you are and a satisfaction of using the gifts that were given to you to help others especially when no one sees but the person that you are ministering to. My biggest desire is to take broken hearts and gently mend them. To take a life that is broken down and hopeless and lift it up until they are walking with a new self-confidence knowing who they are in Christ and watching that life transform into all God meant for it to be before their life was tainted. There are so many Mephibosheths that have been dropped when they were little, wounded, crippled, and they need some Dorcas's to come to their rescue. To make them think that they are worth more than the most precious gem. I was dropped, but someone came by and scooped me up and helped me to believe in myself, and if I can help but just one person the same way, then I will have done more than a million stages could ever have done. If I can hold a grieving mother and let her cry all nightt if she wants to until morning, if I can give clothes to one child who is facing cruelty at school so that they can walk among their friends with their head held high, if I can hold a baby that has no mom or dad and make them feel loved, if I can make Christmas a time of joy instead of a time of discouragement, if I can read to an elderly person at the nursing home that has no visitors day in and day out, if I can be a friend, be a servant, love the unlovable, hold a hand, give a hug, then truly I have fulfilled the call on my life, the call on all our lives. So, who will you choose to be today? A Dorcas or a Deborah? If you have been called to be a Deborah then you have an awesome call on your life and if that skin fits you, then you must wear it. It's what you were meant to do. But if you have been called to be a Dorcas, don't fight it. You are God's heart. You are His voice, His arms, His feet, His hands. Settle into that skin of yours and begin to use the gifts of encouragement and exhortation to give someone hope. They are waiting on you. They need you. Their life could even depend on it. God depends on it. Don't think yourself lesser than Teachers, and Preachers, etc. You my dear, are great in the eyes of the Lord for you are living out daily His word and you have His very heart. You are significant. Thank you Lord for allowing me to see that the skin I was trying to fit in was never mine. Thank you for gently showing me the reasons why I wanted to wear it in the first place. I know that if you desire to use my love of talking and singing and teaching, then when I am ready to handle it and give You all the glory without accepting any of it, You will make a way. Thank you for the gift of encouragement, for a strong love of the written word, for the gift of putting those words down on paper and thank you that You are the one that makes them mean anything to anyone and not me, and for the ability to sing, though I think the most important person I ever need to sing to is You. Thank you for allowing me to serve You. Thank you for changing my heart. Thank you for gently opening my eyes to myself. Thank you for the honor of being Your child. Please forgive me for all the times I went against you and tried to be someone I was never meant to be. Forgive me for thinking that the gift you have given me was insignificant. Thank you for showing me that it is not. Please, touch someone through me as Your vessel. Even if it is just one. I was just one....