Ministry of Availability,
Carolyn Boyd
St. Timothy’s Anglican
Church
After my sophomore year, I informed my mother that I wanted to join VISTA and go to Appalachia. She suggested I wasn't quite mature enough for that and wisely sent me back to college. Twenty years later, on a mission trip to West Virginia with a busload of high school students, I realized my mother had been right. Five years later, my husband and I were teaching in Turkey, hanging out with under-the-radar missionaries, and wondering if that was our calling.
Mission and I have always had a spotty relationship. I chased it for fifty years, and then it caught
me.
“So, what are you doing now that you are retired?”
“I volunteer in a used bookstore for a Christian non-profit,” I should add, “It’s my dream
job.”
God does that on a frustratingly regular basis. We worry and fret over our mission. We ask for
guidance and an open door. Then, when we look in the opposite direction, He showers, no,
deluges us with exactly what He has been preparing us for all along. He does this at the perfect
time and with the ideal opportunity.
I know this is true because I have many friends, all certifiably senior citizens in
retirement, who:
deliver flowers to shut-ins
knit kitten beds for the animal shelter,
drive a friend to dialysis,
run a food pantry
lead work parties in disaster zones
They generally do God’s mission work under the radar of America’s push and shove commercial economy. We are engaged in “the ministry of availability.” The door to this ministry is simply being alert to the needs around us, the opportunity to help, and the mindset to say, “I can do that.” Then leave the rest to the heavenly HR department. I'm sure they have an opening with your name on it to send cards to shut-ins, weed the garden at your church, mentor troubled youth, or collect donations for pregnancy centers. There is no end to what we can do before our end: That part where our beloved Lord says, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”
Carolyn Boyd, St. Timothy’s Anglican Church
