Jerri Kelley

You know the stuff I’m talking about. The stuff that makes people share it with friends or on their social media. The stuff that sits in people’s minds long after they’ve closed the browser. The stuff that makes people feel like their lives have been changed.

I don’t have any of that.

Which, oddly enough, is why I am writing and why I am writing specifically about that.

You know, I’ve come to realize there are people who think incredibly highly of me as a person, as a photographer, and as a writer. I have allowed myself to recognize and take note of the kind comments, texts, and emails that tell me how something I posted or a text I sent was exactly what they needed to hear. Sometimes I have to go back to see what I wrote because I don’t remember. I simply said what came to mind or how I felt in that moment, and it was profound to them.

I was simply me, sharing me, and it was meaningful to them.

That is so crazy to me, and yet, I have seen it over and over again, and my only explanation is that words are the gift God gave me to make the world better, to make lives better, to make hard roads easier, to make crazy spots more sane.

And He expects me to share them.

Even when I don’t feel profound.

Even when I feel so incredibly ordinary and feel like I don’t have words that make a difference at all.

Here is the thing. If this is the gift God wants to use to speak to someone, he knows the someone he is trying to reach. He knows the situation, the pain, the questions, the prayers, the dreams. He knows exactly what they need to hear, and that isn’t about how profound I am but how profoundly loving and omniscient he is.

Sometimes I need to be reminded of that.

And I’m telling you all this in case you need to be reminded of that.

I know it is really easy to feel so incredibly ordinary and so very un-extraordinary. I know it is easy to feel like what you do doesn’t matter, like you don’t matter, but I want you to know that ordinary stuff you do isn’t ordinary in the hands of an omniscient and omnipotent God because he takes our ordinary stuff and uses it in extraordinary ways in lives around us.

It’s crazy how we can feel like the world would never notice if we didn’t get out of bed all the while doing some everyday “us thing” that is actually exactly what someone else needs in any given moment.

Because we are exactly what someone needs in that moment.

So, I’m writing.

And it doesn’t feel profound or life changing. It just feels like I’m telling my story about my day and my insecurities and…being very ordinary me. But who knows? Maybe it is extraordinarily exactly what someone needs to hear to believe that ordinary them really is exactly what they need to be because they are exactly what someone else needs.

Maybe that someone is you. 🙂

Praying you realize how much the world needs you to be ordinary you,
Jerri