Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Vlog (01/16/25)
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TITLE: Marketing Tool | Previous Challenge Entry
By Ellen Janson
01/22/25 -
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“Wasn’t that his job?” she thought angrily while begrudgingly paying him - despite the still leaking pipe.
“Are you a good marketing tool for Me?” her conscience pricked faintly as she ran to answer the phone.
It was her sister, Natalie. She had recently visited their parents, and wanted to fill Penny in on all the latest gossip from their small hometown. Penny chimed in when Natalie began complaining about one of their brothers. Just as she was picking up steam, she caught her six year old son’s expression, seemingly taking in every word his mother was saying.
“Are you a good marketing tool for Me?” her conscience pierced her again.
Those innocent blue eyes shamed her a bit, and Penny curtly ended the phone call with Natalie, citing motherly duties. Feeling a little remorse at what he had overheard, she sweetly offered to help him with his homework.
“Yes. Please!” he said, as he explained the assignment of drawing a picture that would embody the song “This Little Light of Mine”.
“Sure,” Penny agreed (failing to see the irony).
That evening the family went out to dinner to celebrate her husband’s birthday. Penny had made a reservation at his favorite restaurant and was eager to spoil him. Unfortunately, the place was crowded and their waitress was obviously new; she was pleasant, but clearly nervous and very forgetful.
“I’m only giving her a ten percent tip,” Penny reasoned to herself, “she wasn’t very good.”
While fingering her cross necklace as they were leaving, her conscience again tugged,
“Are you a good marketing tool for Me?”
That night in bed when her brain finally got quiet, Penny began to review her day as she had been encouraged to do in her most recent Bible study. Their assignment was to go through the day from the perspective of those you had encountered during the past 24 hours. Behind her eyelids, Penny saw her day as a video.
It was a vlog, with comments scrolling down the side of the screen. Her plumber had seen her open Bible on the kitchen table and posted a comment that Christians were “just like the rest of us”. She saw her young son’s brain taking in the words and actions of his mother who professed to love Jesus so much - question marks and sad emoji’s were on the side of that video. And she saw a video of the anxious waitress noting the cross she wore around her neck and commenting on her desperate hope that this meant Penny would be gentle with her on her first night of work.
“Are you a good marketing tool for me?” God had been asking her all day. As she thought about it, Penny had to acknowledge that she had not done a great job in “advertising” Christianity. As tears began to surface, Matthew chapter 18 came to mind, where Jesus says in regard to anyone who offends a “little one”, it would be better for him that “a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” (King James Version). She once heard that a “little one” could mean not only children (who are always watching) but others who might be young in their faith (and are also always watching).
Her heart hurt and tears fell as she repented to God for losing her temper with the plumber, gossiping with her sister and finally for her self righteousness with the waitress. She knew as a Christian she was called to be “set apart”, and it struck her how much more damage could be done by someone who professed to be a Christ follower, and didn’t act like one. Her spirit was willing, but her flesh was so weak! Penny knew she needed more of the Holy Spirit. She prayed, asking Him to help her do better tomorrow.
She fell asleep to the song her son had been singing all day, “this little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine…”.
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