“It makes no sense why you’re invited.”
Two years ago, those words would have stung like the needles of the giant Georgia pine I’m sitting under at the retreat an acquaintance didn’t think I should be invited to.
No. I take that back. Those careless but oblivious words wouldn’t have just stung. They would have crushed me. Like a razor-sharp arrow in the crosshairs, they would have shot straight through my soul and ripped their way into the center of my fragile heart.
But, oddly, today I relish the truth of them. He was right, I shouldn’t be invited. It makes no sense that I’m sitting here today, in the backyard of a mansion, on a blanket under this old pine tree, looking at a peaceful lake.
How is it that a nondescript girl from Rural Route 2 in Tinytown, Kentucky was offered an on air position at a top 50 television market? How was it that the same girl was called to circle the globe twice and see and experience more of God’s creation than she could have dreamt of in a lifetime? It makes no sense. I shouldn’t have been invited. I held no formal leadership role on my race, yet I was asked to start an entire new department and change the culture at the incredible organization called Adventures in Missions.
Right. It doesn’t make sense. Yet, here I am.
And the truth is, the opinion of a well meaning but misplaced acquaintance doesn’t make a hill of beans when it comes to my invitation. Because I don’t have to claw my way into, manipulate, beg, steal, borrow or invite my own way in. The invitation has been placed firmly in my hand and an opinion isn’t going to change that one way or the other – or take away the fact that I belong.
I belong.
I belong at the banquet Jesus has prepared for me, for all of us. I’m invited. I don’t have to settle for scraps or worry about whether or not someone thinks I’m worthy of an invitation, because it’s already been decided.
And the cool thing is – you’re invited too. The invitation is waiting for you. All you have to do is say “yes.”
