I Am So Ordinary

I had the best lunch yesterday.  This whole blog is about finding a virtual space to have lunch with our girlfriends since we can’t get away from the office very often, but yesterday I got to have a real life in person girlfriend lunch.  Ten adorable working mommas laughing and trading tips.  I swear I walk away so reinvigorated when I leave these rare outings.

One of the biggest treats was an extended visit with a woman who I had not previously known very well.  She has this knock your socks off life story.  I had goose bumps and I cried and I laughed, all within five minutes of her sharing part of her journey with me.  She is this beautiful fun incredible person, and I love that she sat near me at a lunch.

This is what struck me.  In the middle of her story, she said, “I am so ordinary.  I can’t believe this happened to me.”   Y’all, I need that Texas emphasis here, this woman is SO NOT ordinary.  But isn’t that how we feel?  We feel ordinary.

So many of us look at our humble beginnings and our simple lives and then something happens that enables us to have a family or share our story with a broader audience or impact a life or change the world.  Ordinary.  But not.

It does not matter where you come from, how hard or easy or how simple or extravagant the canvas was where God first began to paint your life picture.  A lot of those early paintings look ordinary.  But those were just the first brush strokes on a wall-sized canvas.  Imagine the first phases of a Van Gogh or Monet or Michelangelo.  When the color first touched the painting.  Before the images began to appear.  Ordinary.  But not.

The Bible is filled with ordinary-ness.  Ordinary people used by an extraordinary God.  How else could He shine through us?  Nothing else but His great artistry could render a final work so breathtaking.

I hope one day this woman lets me interview her so you can meet her and hear her story.  In the meantime, know that no amount of ordinary-ness will restrain the Master Painter from creating a masterpiece in you if you just allow Him to finish the piece He began.