HE wants to use you. 
Who is HE?
God.
God created us as specific individuals. He has given us specific gifts. Some gifts may be more obvious. Some may be quieter, less obvious, but one is just as valuable as the other.
God’s gift to you is meant to be used for the benefit of others. And He will come up with a way for you to use, too–if you’re open to His voice. If you listen. But be warned, He will ask for your courage. He will want to lead you, maybe where you’ve never been before. And to that, you’ll have to agree, and then TRUST.
Are you using your gifts? Here’s an example of someone who is.
Recently, a nun went on the Italian version of The Voice.
“My dream was to be a singer,” Sister Cristina told the state news agency, in her only interview. “The Lord has made use of my wish to call me to him, and is taking me to realise my dream in a way that I could have never imagined.”
Having grown up in Sicily, Sister Cristina was not yet a nun in 2008 when she played the role of Sister Rosa in a musical to celebrate the anniversary of the Ursuline Sisters of the Holy Family. She was spotted by Claudia Koll, who had starred in the 1992 erotic film Cosi Fan Tutte, which was released internationally as All Ladies Do It, but who had since returned to the Roman Catholic Church and was starting a drama school at a nunnery in Rome.
“When I saw Cristina, I realised she should be one of the first ones” to enroll, Koll said. “She had the ability to reach people’s hearts, to communicate with people. And she had a beautiful voice.”
At the beginning of Sister Cristina’s March 19 appearance on The Voice, the camera focused briefly on her sensible nun’s shoes as the judges perked up at the sound of her voice and the roar of the crowd. During these early auditions, the four judges sit with their backs to the performers. Then, if they like the voice, they hit a button, and their chairs spin so they can face the singer.
The first judge to hit the button for Sister Cristina was J-Ax, who is now serving as her coach in the competition. Once a self-proclaimed “bad boy,” J-Ax began to tear up. A man who grew up idolising Run DMC and Public Enemy saw in Sister Cristina a different sort of rebel, “Somebody breaking the rules, and doing it in a joyful and cheerful way”.
When she rehearses with J-Ax, he promised the convent’s mother superior that he would protect his protege from the evils of show business. He also said that once the show ran its course, he would talk to her about spirituality. “The light in her eyes makes me curious,” he said.
To some observers, the success of Sister Cristina is another byproduct of the new tone established during the first year of the papacy of Pope Francis. If it once might have seemed inappropriate for a nun to even appear on the show – an issue still stirring discussion on different Catholic websites – now the outpouring of public support is seen as more proof of the so-called Francis effect.
“There is a tendency for music to need to be transgressive,” said the Reverend Raffaele Giacopuzzi, artistic director of the Good News Festival, the Christian singing competition won by Sister Cristina last year. “But today faith is the last transgression. So the time was ripe, but no one noticed.”
Is it time for you to use your gift? Is it time for you to TRUST that God will lead you?
How many lives will be stirred or changed because God has given Sister Christina the means to use her gift? Of course, that remains to be seen, but I believe it will be many.
Translating a World on the Edge 