I recently attended the baby shower of a young woman in our church who I don’t know very well. As part of the shower (which was for men and women), the host had guests affirm the soon-to-be (fourth-time) parents. Many of the people present lauded the young woman’s amazing cooking skills and hospitality.
After the shower was over, I asked her how she became such a good cook. “When I left my job to stay home with my first, I needed a creative outlet; cooking became that outlet.” I learned she had worked as a producer for musical theater. When I expressed how impressive that sounded, this was her response:
“I have a degree in musical theater and production. When people at the church hear that they always ask why I don’t sing on stage. And I tell them, ‘This isn’t the season for me to use that talent.'” Instead, she went on to say, in this season, God was using her to cook, raise her children and show hospitality to the people who enter her home.
I think the woman’s response shows wisdom and self-control. Too often I take pride in my talents and can feel defined by them. In fact, as a new stay-at-home mom, I am having to exercise completely different skills than I did when I sat at a desk from 8 to 5. Sometimes (in those small pity-party moments), I feel a little less special than I used to — probably because I’m not fully exercising the things I consider myself to be really good at, the things that garner attention from others.
But I want to be like this wise mother, soberly accepting the duties God has for me now, and not clinging to my former identity and talents. “Someday, the Lord may call on those talents again,” the woman said, smiling, “but for now I’m in a different season.” And very likely, that is precisely why an entire room of people testified to the impact she’d had on their lives.
