The most commonplace activities, if done for Christ, through the Holy Spirit, are full of eternal significance. Every thought, all of your prayers, your smallest acts, though imperfect, become as fine linen that adorns you as Christ’s eternal bride. (Bible Study Fellowship, notes on Revelation)
The Food For the Hungry (https://www.facebook.com/foodforthehungry) work project at the remote mountain village school in Villa Hortencia,
Quetzal, Guatemala, was to resurface the children’s basketball court at their school. It proved to be a bit grueling, particularly for the men on our team who spent several hours in the mid-morning heat of a rising and persistent sun shoveling loads of gravel and sand into wheelbarrows and hauling them to another location. These piles were then mixed with water to create a thickened, pourable granite. Basically, we’d become human cement-makers.
After several hours, the men were becoming increasingly parched. I surrendered my shovel and partnered with another woman to refill their water bottles a distance down the hill in the building where we ate our meals.
On one of the water runs, I slipped into the dark, cinderblock “kitchen” and made toward the filtered water dispenser. And there stood sweet Dana, one of the youngest members of our team.
“Hey there. What are you up to?” I asked, smiling.
She returned a shy grin. “Just drying dishes.”
With that, I nodded, waved a ‘see ya’ later’, collected the water bottles, and trudged back up the hill toward the school, kicking up a storm of Guatemalan dust.
I thought nothing of it, really. Until the Lord replayed the scene in my head again. And then again.
Dana. Quiet, unassuming. Bringing no attention to herself while performing the necessary and unglamorous task of drying the meal dishes.
I didn’t find her in full view of the other team members where her contribution could be seen, commented on, and photographed for social media posting.
The girl doesn’t even have a Facebook account.
And she wasn’t among those who volunteered in the medical clinic weighing babies or playing with the children
who waited their turn to be seen by the team doc and where iPhones collected myriads of pictures that were then shared among the team. But God saw Dana drying dishes in the hidden stillness of that kitchen.
Point is, I love that God sees the hands and feet of His bride with intimate eyes.
When I grow weary of my work in the kitchen here at home that earns no applause or commendation and becomes oh so quickly undone, He whispers,
“I see you. Your work has become fine linen suitable to adorn My bride.”
Who knows what other unassuming team members quietly served the Guatemalan community under the radar of man’s eye that week? Ah. God knows 🙂
You’ll not find pictures of Dana serving the Lord in the kitchen. They’re stored in my head and in the mind of God. And I, for one, will never look at a dishtowel in the same way again.