Abilities Assessment

Today in class we talked about unique abilities and how to use them. We took an assessment, and now we have to blog about our top five abilities and how God might be able to use them.

Ability #1: Assisting/Helping- My REAL spiritual gift (it's an inside joke, don't worry if you don't understand!) For me being able to jump in and help someone with something is extremely satisfying. One time on a Sunday some people were moving tables and chairs to set up for a potluck later that night, and I couldn't stand around just talking with people while someone else was working, so I went and helped. I missed some of the chruch service, but I wouldn't have traded sitting and listening or standing and singing for helping.

Ability #2: Being Adaptable- I have the ability to jump from project to project effortlessly. In fact, if I'm stuck doing the same job for an extended period of time I get really really bored. Monotony kills me. For example, the past couple of days this week I was splitting wood all afternoon by myself for two days straight. I nearly went crazy. But then yesterday I split wood with someone else for an hour before lunch, worked on our deck with someone else for a couple hours, then helped someone else finish doing dishes, and then went back out to the the wood pile with the same guy for another hour and never once did I feel the urge to take a sledge hammer to the wood pile! I can also take problems in stride. If something comes up, it doesn't faze me. I just say, "Ok, we have a problem, how can we fix it?"

Ability #3: Learning- Now I might not be particularly good at learning, but I love learning new skills and getting better at doing things. I do get frustrated because I like being good at things, and when I'm learning something new most of the time I'm not very good at it. But I really like the opportunity to learn something new that I will put to use sometime later. For example, the other week I spent a couple days screwing in pieces of cement board in the bathrooms of the new chapel here at camp. I had not grown up using a drill, so I had issues, but the fact that I was getting better at a skill was great!

Ability #4: Summarizing/Reporting information- This ability I did not credit myself with, but the other LAUNCH people pointed it out. I do have the ability to pick up on someone else's idea and put it in simple terms. For example, last weekend I over heard a couple of the other LAUNCH students trying to explain to the volunteers where the break room is in the lodge. They were like, "So you know where the piano used to be in the dining room?" "No." "Ok, well the break room is right through the wall that the piano used to be against. There's a door in the wall that leads to the break room." And I went in and said, "You know the swinging door in the serving area that leads to the ice machine?" "Yes." "Just go through that door and keep going straight." "Ooooooh." So yeah..........

Ability #5: Working with my hands- Now again this might not be an ability that I have right now, but it is one that I have a passion to learn and get lots of satisfaction when I do work at something with my hands. Physical labor is something that I think I'm pretty good at and love to do. I'd rather go build something, which I don't know how to do, so it would take me a while to finish because I'm OCD, than sit in an office and crunch numbers every day. I need physical stimulation, like the other day when I was splitting wood all day, sure i had to lift the logs onto the splitter, but that just wasn't enough for me. So that night after I got back from Cubbies, I went and used someone's punching bag to get some exercise and release all those moments when I wanted to take a sledge hammer to the wood piles!

How God could use me and my abilities, I have no idea. But I do have a dream of being married and having a family, living out in the country, maybe breeding dogs, adopting a child or six, being a foster parent, and basically just helping people who need it. I hope that I would be able and willing to open my home to anyone who is in need of help. I could see maybe opening a school or college for underprivileged or poor kids who still want an education. Yeah.........