tiny kingdoms

What do you think your gifts are? Your spiritual gifts? she asked with a broad smile. How are you specially equipped to further the Kingdom? Fill out these forms and we’ll help you find your place, your comfort zone.

I look at her and wonder if my skills can even be measured. If there is a chart for my particular brand of talents.

Every day I am out of my comfort zone.

My place is here.

I am building tiny kingdoms.

Dressing little bodies.

Monitoring little bodies dressing themselves.

Protecting little bodies who undress themselves.

I am the chief Completor of Forms. The holder of medical records. The one with the key to the birth certificates.

I am the builder of bridges, ramps, garages, and rockets. I make houses and barns and tents. I divide supplies equally over tyrannical consumers, and I supervise the demolition of a day’s hard work.

I dress American Girl dolls with speed and efficiency.

I am the monitor of snacks and the keeper of sugar. I pour the milk that is too full for little hands. I open the Ft. Knox wrappers of granola bars and cheese sticks and juice box straws.

I remember where I last saw the beloved bear or baby. I know all the secret hiding places for the one missing shoe. Why is it always the same one?

I am the only one who can be trusted to buckle and unbuckle bicycle helmets.

My kiss magically heals wounds and quiets tears.

I am a master of fitting thumbs into mittens, tiny toes into boots, and hats on frantically moving heads.

I know who wants honey on a bagel, nutella on a sandwich, and jelly-no-peanut-butter on half a slice folded over. I know these things.

These… THESE are my spiritual gifts.

My gifts don’t transfer especially well to the Real World, but they hold my little people- my tiny kingdoms- together.

Is it not spiritual to be able to decipher a cry for help from a scream for joy? Am I not equipped for battle with grace and laughter and discipline… and more than a few tears along the way?

I am not always a grateful bearer of Truth, a kind giver of gifts, a silent hand of encouragement. I am usually looking for instead of handing out. I am simply not ready to be more things to people beyond my own gates. The tiny kingdoms are still stretching my time and my talents.

Someday, I will graduate or expand to sharpening the more traditional spiritual gifts, and I will be useful in different ways. But for now,

Every day, I am out of my comfort zone.

And yet, my place is here.

Building tiny kingdoms.

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And to you, too crazy to make a meal from scratch right now, too overwhelmed to take a walk at night, too behind on laundry to fold AND put away… too tired to write blogs, too unscheduled to bring a meal to an acquaintance, too walking-a-fine-line to reach out- to you: You are not alone. Do the next thing. Just, the very next thing. That’s all you have to do. Eventually, you will be given more. More time, more sleep, more capacity. But for now, just do the next thing in your tiny kingdom. It is enough.