Small Coins in the Hand of God

Listen, my children. God didn’t give me a program. He gave me days—ordinary, poorly lit days like the ones you’re living now.

He laid them out in front of me like a poor man’s supper: chipped cup, stale bread, a knife that’s cut more onions than feast meat. And He said nothing. No grand speech about “vocation,” no trumpet announcing my mission. Just the weight of the hours and this stubborn heart, knocking on God’s door like a drunk who can’t remember where he lives.

You’ll hear people talk as if God hands out destinies the way officials hand out diplomas—neat, framed, with signatures at the bottom.

Don’t believe it.

A life’s mission isn’t printed on linen paper. It comes like a bucket from a hidden well. You don’t see where the rope is tied. You pull, and sometimes what you draw up is cold, metallic, tasting of rust and disappointment. You drink it anyway and bless His Name. That’s the first thing I want you to learn: bless Him, even when the water tastes wrong.

You're meant to be a thread. He'll knot you into people you don’t choose, through conversations you never planned, in places you may not particularly like. It'll feel like tugging and friction. Only God sees the pattern.

The world will tell you your life should be a project: clear goals, visible results, a photograph where everyone is happy and well-lit. Don’t measure yourselves by that. God’s quieter and infinitely more demanding.

He hides your mission under dirty dishes, under exams you’re afraid to fail, under the slow humiliation of your own sins teaching you the truth. He isn’t asking, “What did you produce?” He’s asking, “Will you consent?”

You may never find out, in this life, what your task truly was. Perhaps your mission will be to keep one soul from giving up, and you’ll never know you did it. A single sentence you toss out half-distractedly could glue a stranger back together. Or maybe your mission will be to be the one who seems ordinary, so that someone weaker can dare to be faithful without feeling small.

Heaven keeps those accounts; we don’t get to see the ledger yet.

You'll hear that the saints were extraordinary. I want you to hear me clearly: that’s a lie that excuses our laziness.

The saints were those who let God use every scrap of their lives—their shame, their boredom, their secret wounds—as tools. They’re “rare” not because God rations grace, but because most of us don’t want to be used like that. We’d rather throw ourselves away on our own terms than be spent on His.

In my experience, what frightens us isn’t that life has no meaning, but that its meaning demands everything. If my sickness can serve Him, then even my suffering isn’t mine to hoard. The pain that bows me down in the night, the humiliation of needing help—He may be using all that as mortar between souls I’ll never meet.

Your weakness too, my children, can become a little chapel where others learn to kneel.

When you’re confused—and you will be, more often than you’d like—remember this: fidelity doesn’t mean clarity. You can be utterly in the dark and still be faithful. Staying at your post when the fog comes in, keeping the small promises when you don’t see the point, whispering “Thy will be done” with no idea what you’re signing—this is mission. We aren’t saved by understanding. We're saved by staying ("abiding").

Your sorrow will try to make itself your treasure. You’ll be tempted to polish your grievances, to cradle every old hurt as proof that you’re special. Don’t. Sorrow is meant to be surrendered as well. If you let Him, God will use it to strip you down, to leave you poor and strangely clean, with nothing left but a stubborn ember of hope. Guard that ember. That’s where He likes to work.

Our good Lord may take people from you—friends, loves, perhaps even one another for a time. He may plant you among strangers who don’t know your name, in cities that don’t care whether you live or die. Don’t be scandalized. He’s breaking your dependence on admiration.

You’re already known, down to your last cowardice and your last generous impulse. That knowledge—His gaze—is more terrible and more consoling than any human recognition. Any.

Let me tell you something I’ve learned painfully: you can ruin many things, but you can’t make yourself useless to Him. You can betray trust, waste time, injure those who love you. You can crawl far into the dark.

But if you turn back, even a little, even once, He’ll melt down your sins into a meekness and humility that can shelter others. There’s no landfill in God’s kingdom—nothing gets thrown away as useless—only raw material for a mercy you can’t yet imagine.

So when one day you ask about your mission? I’d answer like this: in this corner of the world, be a sign—perhaps clumsy, perhaps unnoticed—of His patience. Endure your own smallness without despair, your little joys without greed, your failures without the drama of self-hatred. Let Him write His will across your days the way you scribbled on pieces of paper when you were little—crooked lines, strange colors, but real and tender.

If you go hunting for a grand definition of your calling, you might stray into fantasy. The soul is safest when it knows its task is both definite and hidden. Definite, because God doesn’t roll dice with His children. Hidden, because if you could admire your mission, you’d start worshipping it instead of Him.

Your part is simple and hard: keep the commandments in your concrete, daily life. Bear with the people He’s chained you to—yes, including each other and me. Keep your hands open when He gives and when He takes.

One day, He’ll tell us what He was doing with our lives. Perhaps we’ll see that the whole balance of some soul, or some family, or even some hidden corner of history, hung on a small “yes” we gave half-asleep, or on a small forgiveness we almost refused. Until then, remember this from me: the mission of your life is to let Him spend you—in sickness, in perplexity, in sorrow—as small coins that vanish in His hand yet help buy back the world from the dark.

I pray ‘Be it done unto me according to your Word’ may sink past your lips and into your will, until it’s not a verse you recite but the way you spend your days.