Glitter on my Keyboard

As I sit here writing this blog post, I am literally covered in glitter. Glitter from 7 tiny hands making seven tiny craft hearts. There were more than a few deviously smiling 4-year-olds who thought their teacher might like some of their spare sparkles showered on her today. I love my children at Mountview Christian Preschool, but I am also a human. More than once, I found myself complaining over the fact that we decided to use glitter during crafts. Cleaning up their little "gifts" took more than the usual amount of paper towels, cleaner, and hard work.

But, much like my preschoolers, God has showered me with blessings this week. These circumstances taught me an important lesson and caused me to rejoice gladly to the Creator of everything blessed.

The Cost of Comfortable

"But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,"

Philippians 3:7-8

I have read these verses a thousand times, always with a certain apathetic regard for the passage. For a moment my heart exults in the knowledge that this is the way I was made to live, but this fleeting thought succumbs the fact that I am too comfortable to truly endure the "loss of all things." 


But this summer, the time came when God would allow my lazy heart to sleep no longer. My mother checked out a book-on-tape called Kisses from Katie. The passion and joy this book excited in my heart brought those verses to life. Katie, the author, is a 22 year old missionary to Uganda and she wrote this book about how her ministry came to be (she's been there since she was 19). I don't personally feel called to the mission field, but this book cut sharply through my contented passivity. You see, my ideal lifestyle has always been this: a calm, easy existence. To be successful was to have enough. But Katie truly discovered the heart of God. As I read her words heavy with compassion, love, and burdened care for the least of these, God exposed my ideal existence for what it really was: fearful selfishness.