My Spiritual Gift is Losing Things

Plus, a podcast! What I Learned When: Everything Felt Pointless (an interview with Ash Gillespie) and alllll the fun summer links ☀️

Hey friend, 

Photo by Jaye Haych on Unsplash.

My spiritual gift is losing things. 

Recent losses include: a pair of prescription sunglasses, three jigsaw puzzle pieces ($45 replacement fee), two galaxy puzzle pieces, a birthday party invite, an expensive earring, the bible study I wrote (turning up empty handed to run the study), my swim cap, my pool membership tag, a single strap for my espadrille, two intake interviews for work, and my husband’s ute registration bill. Let alone losing my keys so frequently that my four-year-old says, “where did you last see them Mummy?” 

There are other things too. Swathes of my education spent daydreaming, looking out the window and missing basics of maths and telling the time. Turning up at the wrong time and place for piano lessons so often that it wasn’t worth the money. Never sitting still: bouncing my leg, tapping pens, twirling on chairs. Getting in trouble for talking constantly, kicked out of university lectures and teachers exclaiming in frustration, “Shut up! You’re going to be a hairdresser!” 

It’s parking the car for work and forgetting to move it. Sixteen times. On the same street. It’s getting pulled over by police because I forgot to pay my driver’s licence, walking home to retrieve my passport to pay the fine only to return with my husband’s passport. It’s driving through bush fires with the car on empty. It’s supervisors highlighting the difference between my IRL self (scattered) to my on-paper-self (great), like talking to two different people. Sometimes I think I’m a tangent with arms and legs. 

There’s a whole movement of women seeking a diagnosis, a name for the same constellation of symptoms. Sometimes, I think I’ll join them. I’ll pay all my dollars and get a name for the thing. The thing that makes my brain a browser with 50,000 video tabs open and talking. The thing that makes me say to people halfway through a sentence, “Sorry, could you repeat that, I was listening, but I didn’t take any of it in,” or to a table of friends over dinner, “how do you deal with all the paper from school?” and getting blank stares.

Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash.

I became a Christian through someone reading the gospel of Luke with me over two years. When I left school, I had a vague idea that Christians went to church and so, I decided, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll go to church. I went with my friend to her church where a woman was preaching that she lost her credit card, prayed to God, and found it. I was eighteen, a brand-new Christian, and so offended. 

Didn’t she know that God created everything? Didn’t she know that God is holy and sovereign? God created galaxies. How dare she bother him with her lost credit card? 

***

Recently I was bemoaning the loss of one of my possessions to a friend, and she said, “when I lose things, I pray. God cares about lost coins.” 

I’ve been doing this losing-all-my-possessions thing wrong for fifteen years.

I assumed God was too big to care about lost keys. 

Hannah Anderson defines humility as knowing who we are and knowing who God is. Yes, God is bigger than I can possibly imagine. God is everlasting (Daniel 4:3), he made everything (Genesis 1), and everything he does lasts forever (Ecclesiastes 3:14). 

I often blow past the fact that God made me (Revelation 4:11). He made me in his image. He designed a brain that loves words. He gave me an ability to hyper-focus. Sometimes it’s people and their stories. It’s deep diving into research to find the best way for that person to heal. Other times it’s wrestling with a Bible passage, digging into commentaries and podcasts to find out what it means, so I can open it up with a group of women. My brain delights in new schemes and overflows with enthusiasm. People jump on board with my schemes with a frequency that surprises me. 

Not only did God make me, but he also made me in a body. A body is a set of limits. My brain focuses on one thing and loses ten others in the process. God says these limits are for my good (Psalm 16:6). He knows every hair of my head (Matthew 10:29-30), all the days of my life, and all the good works he has prepared for me to do (Ephesians 2:10). But I can’t find out what he has done from the beginning to the end (Ecclesiastes 3:11). 

Pride says I’ll find my lost things on my own. Yet God does not expect me to know all that he knows. The Lord who says that my whole life is a breath before him (‭‭Psalm‬ ‭39:4-5‬), has also chosen and cares deeply for foolish, weak, and lowly people (‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭1:25-31‬). He cares for lost sheep, lost coins, and lost people (Luke 15). He sent his Son to seek and save me when I was lost (Luke 19:10). I can’t save myself and I certainly can’t find all the things I lose. 

I’m learning humility accepts limits. My scattered brain is a limit. I’m letting go of the pretence that I can function without a colour-coded Google Calendar with multiple alarms. I need my bullet journal. I have to use block scheduling and the Pomodoro method to get anything done. I’ve made peace with the fact that if someone tells me something to do and I don’t write it down, it disappears like bubbles on the breeze. 

Although I’m leaning into the common grace of systems and strategies, I’m wary of the desire to use only these. I spent too long assuming it was just me who couldn’t get their act together. Shame slithered around my neck when I felt that every other woman had this grown-up thing down-pat. I carefully tried to conceal my struggles. But concealment is a barrier to connection. It meant I missed out on the joy of community. 

Humility accepts help. The Lord, in his kindness, gave me friends who see the things I forget. They laugh with me when I forget to pay my phone bill and let me use their Wi-Fi because I can’t use my phone. They cheerfully pass on nappies and snacks. Michelle Christie bought me an Advent calendar. She knows I’m keen and yet will not have my act together for December. 

Maybe one day I’ll pay to slap a label on my brain. I might need more help and that’s okay. Maybe I won’t, and that’s okay too. Even if I jumped through the hoops and took medication, I suspect that I’d still lose things. 

When I do, I can remember God made me, he gave me this brain. He loves me and cares for the minutiae of my life that is a breath to him. He gives me opportunities every day to turn, entrust my lost things to him, and ask for help.

ps.

Hannah Anderson’s Humble Roots and Jen Wilkin’s None Like Him changed my life by helping me to think about humility and limits. You can listen to Hannah Anderson discussing how this applies in mothering little children.

pps.

You can deep dive into difficulties with focus here. Worth noting that this can also be caused by sleep problems, not eating enough, depression, anxiety, trauma, and a range of physical health problems, so always chat with your GP first before self-diagnosing over the internet 💛

I’m Loving…

Photos by Bethany Angus @bethangus12 on Instagram.

Guys. I don’t know where Beth Angus has been hiding these AMAZING watercolour skills, but I already ordered these three birds for my living room.

I’ve been trying to eat a vegetarian dinner once a week… Current faves: this and this.

I’m obsessed with these. It’s the perfect summer drink. Closely followed by homemade lemon cordial with tonic water. Juice as many lemons as you can be bothered to do into a pot, add an equal amount of sugar. Bring it to the boil, then simmer it until the sugar dissolves. That’s it. You might be tempted to add less sugar, but don’t. The sugar is what preserves the lemon. You can always pour less cordial into your drink, but it’s not as sweet as shop-bought cordial anyway 😘

Kate Baer’s new collection and Ashlee Gadd’s book about creating in the margins of motherhood are on my TBR list for next year. Can’t wait.

Hannah Le Cras is FAMOUS. She got not one, but TWO articles published on The Gospel Coalition Australia. She’s translated 350-year-old Puritan insights for modern day, tired Mums. Impressive!

See What You Made Me Do is harrowing but worth it. I wish we taught the chapters on coercive control in schools and churches. So many women don’t know what domestic abuse looks like until the noose is too tight and it’s dangerous to leave. Read it to love your friends well.

It’s hard to box it into a category but it is one of my favourite books of the year.

These words are beautiful.

But this flat out made me laugh. Sir!

Have you met Ash?

In this episode, Ash shares what she learned from wrestling with the feeling that everything was pointless. We talked about learning to savour the little things, the people who have encouraged her the most in her Christian walk, and how she is growing in contentedness in the season of little kids. Listen to the end for some gorgeous words of encouragement about prayer from Ash 💛

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts in the discussion thread. See you in February!

Love,

Bec