This post is part of the larger Five Minute Friday community found on Kate Motaung’s blog. We write, for five minutes, together. No major edits. No second guesses, just writing to connect, to grow, to be. We would love to see you there.
During this busy, crazy, upside down time, this supportive group keeps me writing and I am grateful for you.
This week’s writing prompt: Same
Three days ago I went to the parents’ orientation at my son’s preschool. I found myself looking around the room and comparing myself to the other mothers there. Many appeared to be wealthy professionals. I looked down at my carefully selected top and jeans with my Chacos sandals and wondered, “Do I fit in, here?”
Unlike my older son’s public school where the white kids are in the minority, everyone in the room seemed to have the same background, the same standards, the same expectations, the same everything.
But looking around the edges of the group I saw loners like me. Those who maybe felt out of place and uncertain.
Superficially, we look at those who are the same and those are different and make judgments about ourselves as mothers. Am I in on the latest fads? Am I using the best philosophy of parenting? Will another parent judge me for the choices I have made in public schooling, private schooling, home schooling, and on and on and on?
But what if we really were all the same? What if we made the same choices, did our hair the same way, went to the same churches, and shopped at the same stores? Or, to take it a step further, what if there was no diversity in our passions and social cares? What if we ALL spent ALL of our time on the same cause? Like the PTA, but let the environment go? What would happen then?
What a gift we are not all the same.
Because we are not the same, some of us we can watch out for the needs of the women and children in Africa. Some of us stand up for the special needs children in our schools. Some of us fight human trafficking in the far East. Some of us fight homelessness in our communities. Some of us have the gift of spreading the gospel like wildfire, while others continue to quietly love that neighbor across the street.
Because we are not the same, the world is a better place.
The one thing we have in common is the source all of our gifts and abilities: the loving, compassionate God who made us uniquely and “wonderfully complex.” (Psalm 139:14 NLT) As Paul wrote,
The next time I am wondering if I am the same, I want to look instead for these differences among us and rejoice.
Hi Leah! I’m visiting from FMF. What a great post! Love the idea that our differences ARE a gift to the world and to each other, that it’s a way we each look out for various needs in the world. Thank you. “What a gift we are not all the same.”
Thank you for stopping by, Heather! I’m glad you see it as a gift, too.
Leah, the world would be a boring place if we were all the same, wouldnt it? I’m thankful that God has made us all different. Visiting from FMF where I’m parked in the 9 spot.
Thanks for sharing this! And I love to see that particular scripture in MSG–wow, hits my heart like a zinger! As did the CS Lewis Quote!
Thanks again and love from Holland,
Jasmine (also came in from the linkup, nr. 70)
Thanks for your feedback, Jasmine! I appreciate it. 1 Corinthians 12 is one of my favorite passages. I thought the MSG was so refreshing and on point. Glad you agree.