What are your gifts?

So what are your God-given gifts?  You know, those things you are really good at whether or not you like to admit it.  Maybe it has to do with nourishing others with good food you prepare…maybe it is nourishing others with your faith.  Have you dug them up and embraced them yet?

For some, the gifts are obvious.  The ability to sing (which I most CERTAINLY was not gifted with…I have the perfect singing voice for silent movies!); to fly a plane; to have a sense of how to work with difficult personalities and temperaments; to be a mediator…the list is endless.

In my vocation as artist, I find that I have been graced with the gift of creativity.  When I use that gift that comes from God to bring joy, comfort, peace to others, I am spreading the Light of Christ.  I am obligated to use that gift to do God’s will.  When I am teaching in my classroom, it is through the gift of teaching and the gift of compassion that I must bring each student in my care, to the love of Christ.  I am the conduit between the student and God.  Through my obedient example, in my thoughts, words and actions, I am in a position to bring Christ and His message to each person in my classroom.  Numerous times I have struggled with wanting to leave the profession of teaching high school, but each and every time I entertain that thought, the Holy Spirit comes to me through a thought, a person or some other means of communication, urging me to stay “in the mine field” for the “harvest is abundant but the laborers are few.” (Luke 10:2)

Where are you on your journey to embrace the gifts you’ve been given by God?  Are you well on your way of sharing with others?  Or are you still holding the shovel, trying to dig up just what you are supposed to be doing?