Last week I taught my children how to work the sewing machine.
An 8, 12 and almost 15 year old, a sharp needle and an accelerator pedal. What could go wrong?
It’s my pride and joy – we got given it as a wedding present - and when I got it out and dusted it off, I was beaming and excited to get sewing again.
We all made masks for ourselves as a practice for making more. Maybe for others. A life skill shared (sewing) and a passion passed on.
And so I have two thoughts today – buy one get one free I suppose…
What passion could you pass on? And can you pass on that passion even whilst wearing a mask?
I have some friends who are deaf and I am part of various groups on social media within the Deaf community. There are lots of discussions around face masks and how hard it is for those people who rely on facial features, lip-reading and seeing someone’s whole face. It’s not just about communicating words and sentences, it’s also about conveying emotions and feelings too. Try telling anyone how scared you are just with your eyes visible, or how excited you are, how nervous you feel. Try showing compassion and reassurance to someone only through your eyes whilst masking your face.
Our passion might be our faith – so how would we pass this on whilst masking what it does for us, how it affects our life or the joy or contentment we feel. That said – we sometimes do and without even a mask strapped to our ears. We miss opportunities to share God’s love, offer compassion and comfort, to share what God’s companionship does for us as we walk in what can be a lonely world. So how do we shine God’s light from behind a mask?
‘Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in Heaven.’ (Matthew 5:15)
A long time ago in a church far far away my wife and I led a series of ‘different’ Sunday School sessions in our church.
We invited friends and church members to tell us what their hobbies and passions were and then we invited them to share those hobbies and interests with groups of the children for an hour on a Sunday: photography, animation, drawing, painting, reading, creative writing, flower arranging, music and more. And as they shared the children chatted to them, asked them questions, talked to them about how they could see God in the hobby they were doing. The excitement of the people sharing shone out in the thing they were doing and in turn connected people to faith and then to God.
How does our passion, our belief, our ethos, our attitudes shine out of us when we walk and smile and listen and share?
Does it change the way you walk and talk and the way our eyes connect with people?
Could it be the next exciting thing for someone else to discover?
Have a really good weekend – dust off something that once gave you joy and try it again.
Put aside work and chores and duties for a short while and do something that makes you happy.
And feel God’s Blessing on you as you smile in the Spirit of His love.
Take care – God loves us all.