Tuesday Writing...12/11/19... "Most Improved"

Good Morning,

It is easy for us to really see ourselves or to even see how we are on an rise in our earthly improvement. However as we mature we do progress and actually are improving. Amie wrote, "There are still areas of our lives that come across as broken and marred.  It seems that’s all that others see.  They don’t realize that there once was even more brokenness, but God has been slowly working on us putting us back together." 

Try to notice the ways that God is showing that He sees in you that show you how you are improving.

Be blessed by the Lord

Amie Spruiell
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Today's Devotional

"Most Improved" 

Written by 

Amie Spruiell

While cleaning out my closet, tossing out this and that and organizing pile after pile, I found a piece of memorabilia broken, marred, and pretty pathetic looking.  It was a trophy, clearly my own from my childhood as my name was on it.  It stated “Most Improved”.  I laughed!  I actually said out loud, “Well, if this is most improved, what in the world did it look like before?”  What perplexed me was why I had received it, when I had received it, and why I’m not able to remember it.  There was no year on the award, but I had a feeling I had received it when I was attending a little private Christian school between 3^rd and 6^th grades.

Now I’ve never been impressed with participation trophies.  Most definitely, I’m on the team that believes those little trinkets discourage hard work and promote entitlement mentality. I don’t remember ever receiving them, but certainly remember them being doled out to my children.  However, after discovering my “Most Improved” title, it appeared that perhaps I had received something along the lines of a participation trophy…or maybe not.

A little while later, I was clearing out dust and debris off of the shelf where I had found the blurred memory, and I picked up a tiny piece of plastic that had the number “83” on it.  I compared it to the trophy, and it fit perfectly up against a little smeared blotch where it once was glued.  OK, that confirmed that I had received it while attending the school that I had suspected was the place of the “accomplishment”.  At the end of that school year, I would’ve been 9 years old and just finishing 4^th grade.  But for the life of me, I just could not recall the occasion.  As I followed through with my chore, I struggled to remember, which is strange because I’ve always had an excellent memory.  Evidently, I saved it.  Did it mean that much to me?

Though I had placed it in the garbage pile, in the end I set it aside to keep, coming to the conclusion that perhaps “Most Improved” is more deserving of a trophy than “Most Beautiful”, “Most Likely to Succeed”, or even “MVP”.

 

I suppose we should always be striving to improve ourselves, and in the process might not always appear to the outside world that we’re actually improving.  But we are and are just not given the credit for it.  There are still areas of our lives that come across as broken and marred.  It seems that’s all that others see.  They don’t realize that there once was even more brokenness, but God has been slowly working on us putting us back together.  And the truth is we probably are more improved than our critics.  In fact, quite often I’d say we are the ones who are most improved as our critics are usually the very ones who display their outrageously huge “Best in Show” memorial right there at the front of the shelf, hiding behind it all the areas of their life they’re too embarrassed and ashamed of for others to know about.

Over the next few weeks following my discovery, there have been incidences of having my shortcomings brought up as if I’m still a failure.  When in fact, I have been making improvements in those very areas.  Then, in my quiet time with the Lord, He brought to my mind countless areas I’ve improved in over decades of time. What an awesome revelation! God also made it clear to me that not only have there been great improvements, but I continue to strive for more, which in itself is deserving of an award. I may never remember what the story was behind my keepsake, but I will always remember the lesson I learned from it.  Praise be to God that I am “Most Improved”!

Let us not become weary in doing good, 

for at the proper time we will reap a harvest 

if we do not give up.  

Galatians 6:9

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Pat Barrett
Singing
"INTO FAITH I GO

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Remember how God loves you!

Never forget how much you need God!

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Prayers are lifted up daily for you by the Devotional Writers and the Monthly Writing Staff of Women's Focus Ministries.

Blog Writers

Sandy Billingham, Karen Bennett, 

 Brother Thomas Ukwute, Jody Ward, 

Lynda Kinnard, Amie Spruiell, 

Debbie Rodriguez, Carol Steficek,

Jan Andersen and Corinne Mustafa