What can you do?

Note: This post in its entirety is an excerpt from She Did What She Could by Elisa Morgan. The book discusses a phrase from the story in Mark 14:3-9:

Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon, a man who had previously had leprosy. While he was eating, a woman came in with a beautiful alabaster jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard. She broke open the jar and poured the perfume over his head. 

Some of those at the table were indignant. "Why waste such expensive perfume?" they asked. "It could have been sold for a year's wages and the money given to the poor!" So they scolded her harshly. 

But Jesus replied, "Leave her alone. Why criticize her for doing such a good thing to me? You will always have the poor among you, and you can help them whenever you want to. But you will not always have me. She did what she could and has anointed my body for burial ahead of time. I tell you the truth, wherever the Good News is preached throughout the world, this woman's deed will be remembered and discussed."

What if instead of waiting to be invited, I jumped in, took the initiative, volunteered, offered my two widow's mites? 

As I look back on my life, I can trace a pattern of requests proceeding nearly all my involvements: Would you serve on the committee? Would you give your money? Would you help? A call. A question. An invitation. I tended to conclude that initiating action on my own was, well, pushy, bossy, even arrogant. Who did I think I was?

But Mary wasn't "invited." Strictly speaking, Jesus never said, "Hey, Mary, would you please do something especially outstanding for me right now? Something I can hold up as an example for all time to come?"

God gives all of us skills, talents, gifts, possessions, personalities. He creates us to be and to do, and to braid our being into our doing and our doing into our being. I don't wait to be invited to "be." Why would I have to wait to be invited to "do"?

A friend meets my eyes and offers a challenge: "What can you do that no one has ever invited you to do?" I make a list. I am amazed at the variety of very doable tasks I tally. I can put colors together in a room or an outfit. I can use word pictures to describe feelings and situations in ways that communicate clearly. I can see where efforts are headed before they get there. I can identify forces motivating relationships and negotiate through them. Most days, nobody specifically asks me to invest these abilities. Does that mean I shouldn't bring them forward?

Perhaps I need to grab hold of the reality that what God has equipped me to do, he has invited me to do.