#( develop )

SFMWeek 2024 Day 3 - Develop

The raids were relentless, the minarets cried instead of the call to prayer, and bread became a wish. Last night, my wife gave birth to triplets. Three new breaths in a world choked by smoke: two boys and one girl. We didn't even have blankets to wrap them in.

I didn't know how I would feed them. No milk, no clean water, no hope. But when I looked at their little faces, I realized that God doesn't give life in vain.

I named them:

Samid – because he came in the midst of collapse and remained.

Ruqayya – because she was more delicate than all this destruction.

Aziz – because his presence was precious despite the hunger and fear.

I am asking for an urgent donation from those with compassionate hearts, from everyone who can help, to provide:

Baby formula

Diapers

Blankets and baby supplies

Baby medical treatment and basic food

Any contribution, no matter how small, means their survival.

To donate or help, please visit the campaign link now:

One semester I filled in as an academic advisor at a junior college. To help cover a friend’s maternity leave.

I really enjoyed helping students figure out where their strengths lay, what they wanted to do. Helping them sort out what programs and courses would best build on their talents and position them for the future they wanted.

One of the questions I had been told to ask students was about their heroes/role-models. To find out who inspired them. And how.

There was an odd dynamic that I saw in a lot of students when they answered that question.

They would tell me about someone famous they looked up to, who inspired them. With a genuine enthusiasm for doing something with their talents. Inspired by that person.

Then almost immediately follow it with “but I could never…”

Like they were embarrassed. Embarrassed to be excited. Embarrassed because they wanted to do something with their talents.

They were looking at the achievements that had inspired them. People at the peak of their performance. Then talking themselves out of doing anything at all. For fear that they might not measure up to that inspiring ideal.

There’s nothing wrong with being inspired by someone’s use of the talent that God has given them.

But there’s a lot wrong with comparing yourself and your use of the talent that God has given you to someone else’s use of the talent that God has given them. The consequences of that sort of unhealthy comparison is one of the main points of today’s Gospel.

God gave you your talents so that you could be you. Not so that you could be someone else.

If God had meant for you to be them, God would have given you their talents.

Instead, God has given you everything you need to be who He called you to be.

Which means if there’s a talent you don’t have, then you don’t need it to be who God has called you to be.

It also means that you have an obligation to use the talents that God has given to you (which is the other point of today’s Gospel).

In the words of John Paul II, “talent is a gift from God, whoever discovers it in himself has an obligation: to know that he cannot waste this talent, but must develop it.”