The Power of Importance

                On my way to work this morning, my local radio station played a short clip of Beth Moore (whom I love!).  I’m always excited when I leave early enough to hear the morning segment, and I always find it useful in my life.  This morning, her point was that we sometimes hold back in our prayer lives because we are afraid the response (or lack of response) to our prayers will make us feel insignificant to God.  At first I thought, “What a strange idea!  How could a fear of feeling insignificant affect our prayers to God?”  It makes sense though the more I think of it and on many levels in my own life…  

A ministry that I am extremely passionate about right now in my life is a prom dress drive I am doing at work.  I work with mostly 11^th graders, but we are a small school, so I know many more kids than just those I teach.  Our youngest guidance counselor recently started a clothes closet at our school, and I immediately became involved in helping her with it.  I don’t know how many times several of us have brought, bought, or found clothes for a kid in need, and I can’t imagine how much of our own baby items we have given away.  I don’t say this to praise the fact we do it, because it isn’t anything special, but I say it to show what a heart we have for meeting the needs of these kids.  It took me a while personally to get over the fact that sometimes students would take advantage of our love or be unappreciative of items we drove over an hour to find and spend our own money on.  I did, however, because eventually I understood why I wanted to do things for these kids.  It is because I want to show them God’s love, and I want to see their faces in that moment when they realize that there is someone who thinks they are important.  These students we help feel, some of them for the first time ever, that someone who is not a parent and who doesn’t want anything from them believes them to be of enough value that they would help them.  (I don’t know about you guys, but I’m about to have a hallelujah moment myself.)  Isn’t it amazing how our heavenly Father does that for us?  I sit here amazed at the fact that I am just realizing my major motivation for all of my ministries.  I love to see others realize that they are important to God.  One of our clothes donors, who I truly think God sent, brought in a formal looking dress.  It was nothing special really, just a floor length pink dress with no embellishments at all.  One girl who went in for clothes asked the counselor if she could take the dress to wear to prom.  A light bulb went off for the counselor who came to me with an idea.  Would it be possible to find free dresses for girls who can’t afford to buy one for prom?  I had a new mission, or should I say ministry.  I am a girly girl.  I have already admitted that I do NOT leave my house without at least minimum make up, and yes, both of my girls have painted toe nails at this very moment, even the one who can’t walk yet.  I love femininity, and I love dresses!!!  Therefore, I was more than a little enthusiastic about my new mission.

                How then, do we begin to gather dresses?  Step one: my closet.  I went to two proms, was in four pageants, and have been a bridesmaid several times.  I don’t ever even want to fit into a size 2 formal dress again, so I brought them all.  The rack still looked pretty naked.  I sent out an employee email.  It helped, but still, we needed more.  I then did something I rarely do outside of my family.  I asked for help.  I’m such a prideful person that I hate to even sell something.  I honestly don’t even like to take up jewelry or make up orders because I feel like I’m begging.  Somehow though, when it came to helping these girls, it didn’t matter.  I begged more than once.  I even begged specifically when I realized we needed dresses that were a larger size than those we had.  I drive to wherever necessary to pick these dresses up, and I try my best to say thank you as many times as the conversation will allow.  Why would something as trivial as prom dresses for high school girls be so important to me?  Have you ever seen a bride-to-be try on a wedding dress for the first time?  Have you looked at her face when the realization of the specialness of such a dress hits her?  That’s why.  When these girls go into our little closet and find a dress they think is beautiful and put it on, they feel important and special.  If we look that way to our Heavenly Father, then I know how much His heart must burst with love for us.  As humans, it is an essential need for us to feel important.  We crave it, we hunt it (often in the wrong places), and we yearn for it.  That, my friend, is why we look so hard for a mate in life.  We want someone who makes us constantly feel important.  That is why we love being mothers so much; there is little person to whom we are of the upmost importance.  It sounds selfish, but it is completely true.  We were made that way, I believe, so that we would search for God.

                How does this tie into my chaos, you may ask?  Easy.  I am constantly aware of trying to make each of my children feel important.  I need them to know that they are each a vital part of our family unit.  I love them all equally, but they are special in such different ways.  My twins are just learning to be jealous, which I believe is our first way of showing we need to feel important.  Sometimes it’s comical when I come home from work, because they both want me to hold them first thing, and quite honestly, they do not want me holding the other baby at the same time.  Tank, who is a mama’s boy, gets especially jealous.  He will fling his little body back and cry as I hold them both, but if someone takes Tinker Belle and I can devote both arms to him, he will settle down.  I can see in my past when all I have wanted was a two arm hold from God.  I see when I needed that tight hug, that security that only both arms can give.  I needed to be held completely, without having to hold back.  I needed to feel special, important.  Tinker Belle is a little different.  She will let Tank have his moment, and then she will come to me.  She knows that this will actually give her more time to be held.  At the same time, she is happier just playing around on the floor, but the moment I leave the room, she is devastated.  She can play on her own, but she needs the security of knowing I’m nearby in case she needs me.  Then, there is my sweet, sweet Princess.  Dean and I feel guilty so often over how her life has changed.  I don’t feel guilty over her having to share us, but I do feel guilty over the fact that she doesn’t understand that we prioritize our time by need.  Sometimes, she wants her needs to be met first, whether or not they are as important as the needs of the twins.  Honestly, there are times when I allow her needs to be met first, even if it means a wet diaper is left on for 2 extra minutes, because I want her to understand that she is important. 

                I don’t know really what I was hoping to accomplish with this post.  Mostly I think I just wanted to invite you into my mind, or maybe my spirit.  It is amazing to me how God connects all these little parts of my life when teaching me a lesson.  I mean, honestly, how else could my drive to work, my charity work, and my relationship with my children all be connected?

                Maybe you’re feeling pretty important in life right now, or maybe you are feeling a little insignificant to God.  Either way, here is my prayer for us:  “Heavenly father, thank You for feeling that I am important.  Thank You for taking the time to create me very specifically.  Thank You for thinking that I’m so important that it was worth the time to count the hairs on my head.  I love You so much for being so huge that I can’t even fathom Your greatness, but for making me feel special, as unimportant as I am.  Help me to share Your love with others and make them feel important.  Help the other ladies around me to know that I think they are so wonderful and special.  Help us to know that our failures do not define us, but refine us.  Help us to know that the only significance we need in life is that which we feel from You.  We praise You, love You, and hope to bless Your name.”