The gift you carry
Stewards of grace
She slips into the back row again, where she has decided she belongs now. After what happened, she has worked it out quietly: she is here to receive. To be cared for, to take a back seat, to let others carry things while she heals. She is not wrong, not for a season. But there is a sentence Peter writes that would change the whole way she sits, if she let it land. Each one has received a gift, he says, and the gift was given to be employed in serving one another, as good stewards of the grace of God in its many forms. He does not say the strong have gifts and the wounded only needs. He says each one. Which means there is something specific in her hands that the body is missing while she keeps it folded away. Paul says it too, plainly: we have gifts that differ according to the grace given us, so let us use them. The turn back toward a people is not finished while you remain only a consumer of the community's care. Somewhere in your hands is a gift the others need. And giving it, it turns out, is part of how you yourself are healed.
“As each has received a gift, employ it in serving one another, as good stewards of the grace of God in its various forms.”
— Peter — 1 Peter 4:10 (WEB)
“Having gifts differing according to the grace that was given to us, let us use them.”
Reconnect here includes giving, not only receiving. The body is where each person, even the wounded one, carries a gift the others need. Peter says each one has received a gift, to be used in serving one another as a steward of grace. To be re-rooted in a people is to discover you are not only there to be cared for; somewhere in your hands is a gift, and giving it is part of how you heal.
Coming back to a people after being wounded, you may quietly assume your only role now is to receive and recover, to sit in the back and let the strong ones serve. That season is real, and you should not rush it. But there is more in your hands than you think. You have received a gift, given not to hoard but to use in serving others, and you are a steward of some particular grace the people around you are missing while you keep it folded away. But Peter presses gently further. You are a steward of some particular form of God's grace, and here is the part that may surprise you: the body is missing exactly what you carry when you keep it folded away.
You are not only a consumer of community, a mouth to be fed and a wound to be tended. You are a giver too, with something the others actually need. And there is a mercy hidden in this you might not expect. And here is the mercy you may not expect: giving the gift in your hands is part of how you yourself come back to life. The healing is not only in what you receive. It is also in what, when you are ready, you begin again to give.
The Church can quietly split into two classes, the few who serve and the many who only receive, as though gifting belonged to the strong and the wounded brought nothing but need. Scripture dissolves the divide for the whole Body: each one has received a gift, each is a steward of grace, each is meant to serve the rest. Across history the Church has been most alive where every member found and employed what they carried, rather than a few performing while the rest looked on. The gifts folded away, unnoticed and unused, are exactly what the Body is missing. A Church where grace flows in only one direction has forgotten that it was given to flow in all.
What you carry is not erased by what you suffered. The grace entrusted to you survived the wounding and is still in your hands, a particular gift the body needs and no setback could confiscate. It waits, intact, for the day you are ready to give it again, and finds you not emptied but a steward still.
- Have I decided I am only here to receive, when something in my hands is meant to be given?
- What gift might I be keeping folded away that the body is quietly missing?
- How might giving again, when I am ready, be part of my own healing rather than a drain on it?
Lord, after the hurt I assumed my only place was the back row, here to receive and nothing more. But You entrusted me with a gift the wounding did not take away. Show me what I carry that others need. When I am ready, give me the courage to unfold it and serve again. Let the giving be part of how You bring me back to life. Amen.