Wednesday, October 08, 2008

a few words from a little toe

The significant, life-forming times are the dull, in-between times. – Jan Karon

Sometimes Facebook is a dangerous place for me to be.

I love visiting that site, I really do. It’s the best way for me to stay caught up with my friends, who are literally scattered to every continent. And if I’m not careful, I can lose an afternoon while catching up with the latest pictures and news.

But it wasn’t a time management issue that tripped me up last week.

I was reading the latest from my friends, who are doing truly amazing things: earning a doctoral degree, practicing occupation therapy, planting trees in Africa, finishing up dentistry school, training staff on new computer systems. They’re in politics, nursing, flight school, film, teaching, law, and ministry, and I am so, so, so proud of them all.

And then I sign out and go back to my computer and pull up my novel, my quiet work that I’ve been doing for two and a half years, and I get a little envious of their apartments and degrees and boldness. For all that I love what I do, sometimes it feels a little dull. A bit mousy. Certainly not flashy. And sometimes it doesn’t even feel legitimate.

When I was in England, one of my British friends was talking to me and a few others about the image in 1 Corinthians 12:12 about the body of Christ. How we need all the parts, how we’re all different and all important.

And it’s so true, but I love what he said next, with cheerful resignation, in his excellent British accent. “If that’s so, then I think I’m an armpit. Yes, I’m the armpit in the body of Christ.”

In the next moment, my American pals and I were trying to outdo him, thinking of smaller, sillier parts to be. For myself, I settled on the smallest toe. Smallest toe of the left foot, to be precise.

Some days I feel that way still—rather tiny, out of the way, watching with pride and amazement as my brilliant friends conquer the world. Some day I might get a promotion, the novel could turn out to be fine work (imagine!), and I might graduate to a larger toe size. Or even a knee. I think I might like to be a knee.

We all have our gifts, our callings. Strange that I let myself get distracted from being who I am by who I’m not.

For now, back to revision.—jl

Posted by Jenn Langefeld on 10/08 at 01:59 PM
(0) Trackbacks • Permalink

<< Back to main