Today’s blog post is actually this past week’s Sweet Thoughts devotional that I send out weekly to my VIP email subscribers. There was such an outpouring over this devo, people sharing their stories with me or simply a reply saying they connected deeply with this one, that I thought it needed to be shared with everyone.
If you aren’t signed up for my weekly devotionals, you can here. I don’t spam you. Scouts honor. This is a way for us to connect twice weekly: my devotional on Tuesdays at 6 AM + my Friday round-up. By being on this list, you get first notice for new products in The Cake Shop, and sometimes I even send out special discount codes just for YOU guys that nobody else gets. I get a bit more personal in my Sweet Thoughts, because this is where we take our Cake Community relationship to the next level.
xoxo, Han
Today’s Scripture: Luke 10:2
You have significance. You have purpose. You have influence. You get to be the hands and feet of Jesus. You have a ministry. Yes, you. You have a ministry.
Today’s devotional may as well be titled “Hannah’s thoughts after Chapter 10 of her book, Uninvited.” Y’all, if you listen to anything I say in this whole email, please let it be to go buy Uninvited to read. Every woman should read this book. It’s scarily like reading my own diary… I mean seriously. And, I think you just might connect at that level with it, too, because I believe at our core we are all so similar. Us women, though unique and made so differently, I can guarantee there are times in your life you can recall feeling rejected or insecure. Am I right? Does that rejection still follow you around from time to time? I once heard my pastor say in a sermon that we often live with a 13 year old view of ourselves still. That statement blew my mind, because it was so true for me. Our insecurities and our fears, so much of it can likely be pinpointed to somewhere around 13 years old. Living with a 13 year old view of myself is why I can often function out of a fear of rejection as Hannah the 25 year old. It’s why I can see myself as not quite good enough or cool enough. It’s why I have a tendency to sink back to the corner in a room of women, and it’s why “mediocre” is a lie I have to battle way more than I would like to admit.
So what’s this have to do with the verse for today? There is room for you. In fact, there is need for you.
“What a huge harvest! And how few the harvest hands. So on your knees; ask the
God of the Harvest to send harvest hands.”
There is plenty of space at the table, and no ministry is too small. Whether you have thousands of followers on Instagram or your ministry as a stay at home mom is your children, you are significant and you’re playing a role in the harvest. The work of your hands and your words matter. Sometimes I can look around and compare what I am doing to others, and feel immediately insignificant. “Oh, she’s famous. She has a much larger platform than I will ever have. She has it covered.” FALSE. This scripture in Luke shows us that the harvest is in surplus. It’s so big that we actually don’t have enough hands willing to work to get it all done, and we are called to pray for more. Your ministry matters. Your influence matters. No task, no work, no effort for the kingdom is too small. Your life matters and it has purpose. The author of Uninvited, Lysa TerKeurst, encourages us to live with an abundance mindset. Meaning we ought to live in a mindset that says there’s plenty of space for all of us to succeed. There’s plenty of space for all of us to do whatever it is that YOU do. Yet, we so often live in a scarcity mindset. Because of insecurity, we fear there isn’t enough space for all of us to succeed, and therefore it’s hard to cheer on others who seems to be doing better at what we so desire to do. In the same manner, when we live in a scarcity mindset we can discount ourselves and cheapen our worth. When we live in scarcity, we believe someone is taking our place in the race and therefore we lack worth. Comparison, my friends, will destroy you. Battle the urge to compare your influence to one another’s. Your story matters, and it can glorify Jesus in ways that so-and-so’s can’t. Not because yours or hers is better, but because you were given your exact journey to glorify the name of Jesus in ways someone else’s just can’t.
The harvest is many. There are so many lost who need to hear your story. They need to hear what Jesus has done in your life that delivered you from rejection to acceptance. From living in scarcity to thriving in abundance. It’s by your story that the harvest hands grow in number. Your story has power through the work Jesus did in you and for you.
Live in abundance. Live knowing you have purpose. Live knowing you have influence. Never shy away from the opportunity you’ve been given to be the hands of the harvest.
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