Melanie Shankle - Church of the Small Things: The Million Little Pieces That Make Up a Life

Contents

Other Books by Melanie Shankle

Sparkly Green Earrings

The Antelope in the Living Room

Nobodys Cuter than You

ZONDERVAN

Church of the Small Things

Copyright 2017 by Melanie Shankle

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

Epub Edition August 2017 ISBN 9780310349266

ISBN 978-0-310-34887-0 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-0-310-35103-0 (international trade paper edition)

ISBN 978-0-310-62932-0 (special edition)

ISBN 978-0-310-35165-8 (audio)

ISBN 978-0-310-34926-6 (ebook)

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

The author is represented by Alive Literary Agency, 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80920, www.aliveliteracy.com.

Cover design: Curt Diepenhorst

Cover illustration: Heather Gauthier

Interior design: Kait Lamphere

First printing August 2017 / Printed in the United States of America

To my dad:

This book is for you because you taught me what it

means to love family and the importance of being faithful

in all the small things that make life worth living. I am

grateful for many things and at the top of that list is that

youre my dad. I love you more than I can say and have

always been so proud to be Charles Marinos daughter.

I met Melanie Shankle on the internet. I laugh as I write that, but its true. She and I began blogging around the same time many years ago, and fortunately for me, we eventually crossed paths in real life. I felt an immediate connection to Melanie, not just because we were both tackling the brave new world of social media at the same time, but because her unmistakable, irresistibly dry-but-warm humor simply drew me in. One has no choice; just a short conversation and you become an instant Melanie fan.

So Melanie and I are friends. But she also happens to be one of my very favorite writers. Having inhaled her blog and devoured her books for years, I can still plop down, start reading, and find myself laughing within the first five minutes. Melanie has this consistent ability to pull you in with hilarious recollections (usually rich in pop culture references), self-deprecating observations (so, so funny), and family anecdotes that are vividly relatable and real.

But heres the kickerand the truly magical thing about Melanie: Just when you think the girl is 24/7 funny, shell throw you a major curveball with a poignant moment. A tender reflection. A spiritual contemplation. A painful memory. And then you have tears in your eyes. The next thing you know, youre crying. (Related note: Have a box of Kleenexes handy as you read certain passages in this book. Consider yourself warned.) But then... you guessed it! A classic Melanie one-liner that makes you laugh out loud through the tears. Dolly Partons character in Steel Magnolias had it right: Laughter through tears really is the best emotion.

Melanies previous books have covered motherhood, marriage, and friendship in beautiful detail. But Church of the Small Things is, I think, my favorite. With her signature wit and wisdom, Melanie shows us that life is about the small moments, the small memories, the small achievements. We all have them. And when we learn to embrace them, we will see that it really is the small things that make up this beautiful thing called life. As I was reading the manuscript for this book, I sent Melanie a text along the lines of My gosh, I love this book so much.

Its a good one, friends. I know youll love it as much as I did.

Ree

I ve spent my whole life listening to the story in the Bible where Jesus feeds five thousand people with five small loaves of bread and two fish. (Thank goodness that crowd didnt know about being gluten free.) Ive seen it depicted on flannel boards in Sunday school, watched it brought to life in movies about Jesus, and heard it taught from various pulpits a million times. Whenever and however the story is told, the focus is always on one of three things: (1) the disciples who didnt have faith in what Jesus could do, (2) the miracle of turning a sack lunch into enough food to feed five thousand people, or (3) the admirable character of the little boy who willingly offered his meager lunch. But you know who never gets a shout-out? The mom who packed that lunch in the first place.

Maybe she was in a hurry; maybe she just threw in those five small loaves and two fish and shooed her boy out the door, glad to get him out from under her feet for the day. If she was like me, she probably hadnt been to the store recently and even gave the fish a quick sniff, worried it might not be any good. Maybe she gave the bread a quick once-over for signs of mold, because how embarrassing would it be to have your kid pull out some moldy bread for lunch? No matter what was involved in packing that lunch on that particular morning, Im willing to bet she wasnt really concerned or even thinking about how God might choose to use her boys lunch that day. I bet she didnt wring her hands over whether or not that lunch might matter in the larger scheme of Gods plans or wish she could do something on a larger stage in front of an audience of people cheering her on as she tucked that fish and those loaves into a basket, and she definitely didnt do an Instagram story about it. The bottom line is, she didnt do the glamorous thing; she did the faithful thing. She packed a lunch for her boy just like shed probably done a million times before, and God used her small act of faithfulness to feed five thousand people. He also used her son, whom shed probably admonished daily to be kind and share with others, wondering if it was falling on deaf ears. She got tangible proof that day that her boy had actually been paying attention. If youre a mom, then you know that this, in and of itself, can feel like a miracle.

So maybe you can see where Im headed with this mom and the lunch bag story. Sometimes the biggest things God does start out in the smallest, most ordinary acts of daily faithfulness. The things we do so often and with so little fanfare that we dont even think about them anymore. We can spend so much time wondering and worrying if were fulfilling Gods primary will for our lives. Yet, ultimately, Gods will isnt about the things we achieve; its about the people we become. Life is more about how he uses us to make a difference to the people who cross our paths, even while we are just going about our normal, sometimes boring, lives. He is a God who used twelve men to change an entire world. He is a God who clearly finds value where we tend to look and see nothing special. Gods primary will for our lives isnt about a particular job or a circumstance. Its not about the city we live in or whether were married or single. We are in Gods will when we wake up with a willingness to go wherever he leads that day, to seek him in the ordinary, and to love and influence the people around us. Sometimes that can look a whole lot like packing a lunch.