A Tale of Two Sisters

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One of my devotions will be posted on Christian Devotions August 29, 2013. Please stop by and check out the site.

In an earlier post, I mentioned a trip I took to visit my mother. That post concentrated on the aspect of air travel. This post will shed light on the actual visit, from the point of view of two sisters.

Like the castaways on Gilligan’s Island, and their “three hour tour”, one sister is like Mrs. Howell. The other, Gilligan. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which sister is which.

When sharing living space in a hotel for four days, the first job is to stake out your claim on the bathroom counter top.

 

The next job is to set up your suitcase. Or cases.

Next, is to decide which shoes to wear.

Of course, once you get settled in, there is the need to make yourself at home

But in the end, the important thing is to know the reason for the trip was well worth it.

Just as we are told in 1 Corinthians 12, there are many different parts to the body of believers, there are many different ways of doing things. Nevertheless, every part is important.

You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body…

I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, “I’m not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don’t belong to this body,” would that make it so? If Ear said, “I’m not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the head,” would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell?

As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it. But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”?

…You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach… If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?

1 Corinthians 12:12-21 The Message

How are we using the individual parts and pieces God put into us, to accomplish his will in this world? How are we his hands and feet? We don’t have to fit into the mold of a Lovey Howell. Or a Gilligan. We just need to be tools in the hands of the Master.

I wish you well.

Sandy

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