Boston

Maybe your best thing won’t draw a paycheck, but it is still where you shine and glow and come to life and bless the world. May I legitimize your gifts please? Just because you don’t get a paystub doesn’t mean you should shrink back or play small or give it all up. Do your thing. Play your note. We are all watching, learning, moved. You are making the world kinder, more beautiful, wiser, funnier, richer, better. Give your gifts the same attention and space and devotion like you would if it paid. (Or paid well. Some of us do our best, most meaningful work for peanuts. Do not be shamed out of your race for a bigger paycheck. I did not make a living as a writer for YEARS. My neighbor once when I told her I was a Christian author: “Oh! Is there a market for that?” Me: “I have no idea.”)

Run your race.

Maybe you need to invest in your gifts. Take a class. Go to a conference. Sign up for a seminar. Start that small business. Put that website up. Build in some space. Say yes to that thing. Work with a mentor. Stop minimizing what you are good at and throw yourself into it instead with no apologies. Do you know who is going to do this for you? NO ONE. You are it. Don’t bury that talent, because at the end of the day, the only thing your fear netted you was one buried talent in a shallow grave.

How many of us are trotting out that tired cliché – “I’m waiting for God to open a door” – and He is all I love you, but get going, Precious Snowflake, because most of the time chasing the dream I put in your heart looks surprisingly like hard work. Don’t just stand there, bust a move. (God often sounds like Young MC.) You are good at something for a reason. God designed you this way; this is on purpose. It isn’t fake or a fluke or small. This is the mind and heart and hands and voice you’ve been given: USE IT.

http://jenhatmaker.com/blog/2014/03/24/run-your-race

Goodbye, Wayne!

A dear part of our church left for Hong Kong today. To commemorate Wayne's time here, I made him a Sunday school "yearbook" / going away card. Each of the Sunday school kids drew a small self portrait, and then I compiled them with some simple text and my own drawing of Wayne. The result is pretty cute!

Front and back cover (later folded like a card)

Inside, with names first names alphabetically listed.

Christmas caroling

In Chinese (above) and Gujarati (below)

Reluctant Recruitment

"Do you want to go to Shake Shack?"
"Can we work on festival prep?"

My poor friends make a lot of sacrifices around festival season!

Brianne's Goodbye Party

Sneaking photos as we pray...because otherwise all of these beautiful people are rushing around, chasing kids, preparing food, moving out of state... Sigh.

Congratulations, Jorge!

Super proud of my friend, neighbor, and coworker, Jorge! One of the most hard-working and humble men I know. He tells me all the time he's a laborer, not a thinker, but he wanted to know more about ministry and put himself through school to do so!