Ordinary People, Extraordinary God

I'm not much as far as impressive people go.  I write, but I'm no Faulkner.  I sing, but I'm no Sarah Brightman.  I play trumpet, but I'm no Louis Armstrong.  I love Jesus, but I'm no Mother Theresa. 

So there are times, like tonight, when I look back at how God has moved in my life, and I stand amazed.  I see a farm-girl from Rhode Island moving to Po-Dunk New York, attending a secular music camp and meeting a life-long friend who led her to her alma mater in Illinois where she (eventually) finished a Master's in Teaching only to quit teaching, move back to RI and take a job as an Agricultural Extension Agent (a job for which she had no formal training whatsoever) at the University of RI where she met her husband, bore two gorgeous children, survived a divorce and more, and through it all finally found something meaningful to write about. 

Not much of a story when you look at it like that.  But then you add in the details, the little brush-strokes God includes just because He can, and that life is something extraordinary.  Because this little not-much of a girl has seen God move. 

I have seen God provide Christmas gifts to a family of poor dairy farmers in the form of a check from a closed-out account thought to be empty.  I have seen God provide the money for those same three children to attend private Christian colleges.  I have seen God bolster this woman with friends who really are extraordinary, people who share the Gospel in places where they risk their lives every day.

I have been part of a life-changing, campus-wide revival.  I have seen God meet my physical needs when their was no reasonable expectation of it.  I have been the humble recipient of God's hand of healing. 

And I have "deserved" none of it. 

But is that not the beauty of our God?  It is NEVER about us.  It is ALWAYS about Him.  It is about His love.  His mercy.  His grace.  His long-suffering.  And also His justice.  His wrath.  His dominion. 

I am just an ordinary person.  But in the hands of an extraordinary God, there is no limit to what this ordinary person may do. 

The same is true of you.