Saturday, January 10, 2009

On Finding One's Purpose in Life


I read the below in the middle of the night last night (this darn cough is STILL keeping me awake) and thought it was lovely. Wanted to share it.

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I am grateful, God, that I have finally come to realize your purpose for me.
Just when or how this came about I can't say. It wasn't sudden and dramatic, the way it happened to Paul on the road to Damascus, or Peter Marshall with his experience on the Scottish moors.
There have been no visions, no voices, no letters written in fire upon a wall saying: "Do this." "Do that." "This is your reason for being."
No, my search for you and for the meaning you had for my life has been uncertain, groping, erratic, filled with accidents, false goals. Sometimes I seemed to sense that purpose and clearly see it; but it vanished like a mirage in the harried, often cruel buiess of everyday.
Yet somehow you keep track of your floundering creatures.
Maybe because life is so filled with defeat and heartbreak, we find ourselves turning to you, yielding ourselves to your will, fighting less furiously for selfish, often empty goals. And when this happens we find that you have turned our sufferings and our failures into little stepping stones.
Looking back we see them. These rocks which gradually, all unkown to us, you have been shaping to lead us towards our purpose.... And we have been following! However blindly, however zigzag the course, yet we have been moving toward it.
And looking about, we see there are results. There are signals, heartening little affirmations, unexpected proofs.
However humble our circumstances or undramatic our talents, our true purpose has been revealed. We were meant to be to be this person at this time and place. Not only for ourselves, but for you and other people - we were meant to make this particular contribution to the world.
And so we must do it well. Do it with faith and patience, with all our strength and passion. And in so doing discover who we really are.

-M. Holmes

7 comments:

Busy Bee Suz said...

Beautiful!!!!
I hope you feel better soon....

Dawn said...

thanks... what a needed message... sometimes it just has to happen in the middle of the night!

Gberger said...

That is inspiring, lovely and worth reading. Thank you for sharing it here. God bless you!

Anonymous said...

"We were meant to be to be this person at this time and place. Not only for ourselves, but for you and other people - we were meant to make this particular contribution to the world.
And so we must do it well. Do it with faith and patience, with all our strength and passion. And in so doing discover who we really are."

We live in a society which tells us to make something of ourselves and then we follow down a course of thinking we make something of ourselves...

The ending of this I LOVED! Because as we know with age and little wisdom... We must just be who we are finding ourselves to be... and do it well.

Thanks for this today.

Get Well Soon!

Michele said...

That's a really wonderful piece to read... thank you.
I sure hope you feel better soon.
(hug)

Unknown said...

Very nice. God is so good! I am thankful for him every day. I had a co worker call me yesterday and ask me to tell him why I believe in God. It was pretty exciting because he is an athiest. Pray for him please : )

I hope you feel better soon! How did the kids do this week back at school?

HWHL said...

Wow, Rebeckah - that is exciting! Well, you know it says in the Bible to be prepared to answer to others for the "hope you have"... and I'm sure you did just that! How exciting - you got to plant some seeds! I will definitely add this man to my prayers (what is his first name?)

Kids did well on the first week back. Slipped right back into the swing of things. I hope Kaishon is doing well! :-)