Your voice, no one else's

I must give thanks for coming across a book that speaks to someone who was fearing he had lost touch with, uh, everything.

The book by Bishop Dottie Escobedo-Frank is called ReStart Your Church, but it easily could have been ReStart Your Life. It's a short book, but powerful, like the first leak in a mighty damn. It could become a river of water in your life if you give it a bit of a chance. Just a bit.

It askes the question, what is our response to decline and death? How do we start to change? She then says that when God called you, he didn't give you "an adaptive voice; God gave you a particular voice. It is up to you to realize (make actual) the strength, power and compassion that reside within your voice."

And get this the most.

"Your particular vocality is connected to God's message, and if the vibrations of your sound are not heard around the world, someone will not get the chance to know God's love. Someone will be lost. Someone will remain hopeless. Someone will die of a broken heart. Make your voice true to who God made you to be."

Here is my heart's plea: Let's think of new ways to serve him that include those who are lost, those who are in prison, those who are hungry, sick, homeless.

Wait, wait. Wait (some more). That's familar to me. Oh, oh, oh, that's what Jesus said.

So I ask you, young reader-san, are you doin' it? Really.

That paragraph, a simply, single piece of work that the Bishop worked on for weeks as far as I know, is so very powerful. You, your voice, your work, your ladeling food, your visiting a hospital room, your flowers delivered, your phone call to the depressed, your love of giving to those who need so desperately to be receiving, that you must own.

You have a gift, the Bible teaches.

Paul wrote to the church in Rome, "For I long to visit you so I can bring you some spiritual gift that will help you grow strong in the Lord."

To the church in Corinth, "For I long to visit you so I can bring you some spiritual gift that will help you grow strong in the Lord." And, "A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other."

And to his student Timothy, "This is why I remind you to fan into flames the spiritual gift God gave you when I laid my hands on you."

Peter wrote to a church he was affiliated with, "This is why I remind you to fan into flames the spiritual gift God gave you when I laid my hands on you."

Get the picture?

You, you, and you alone might make the biggest difference that can possibly be made in someone's life. But if you never speak, never profess, never share, never live into or next to someone's life, they might die spiritually and eternally.

This is an incredible challenge, an awesome responsibility. The question is, are we able, said the Master?