Kendra Robinson

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Somewhere along the way I heard a quote that stuck with me like straw in a hoodie pocket: Your talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.

Now, if we’re being honest, when people hear the word “talent” they tend to picture something impressive. Running marathons. Drawing pictures where the hands actually look like hands instead of potatoes with fingers. Cooking meals that don’t involve opening a package and adding hot water.

What they usually do not picture is a sleep-deprived farm girl standing in a calf barn at 11:30 at night, holding a bottle for a Jersey calf who is currently evaluating whether milk is worth the effort of existing.

And yet…here we are.

The funny thing about God’s calling is that it rarely shows up looking glamorous. It shows up looking like work. It looks like boots that never quite get clean. It looks like bottles to wash and electrolytes to mix and that one calf who has decided that standing up is optional today and we will be discussing that decision again in ten minutes.

And if I’m really honest, it also looks like me standing there thinking, “Lord…you do realize I am not the sharpest pitchfork in the shed sometimes, right?” But here’s the part that has always made me laugh a little. When God calls someone to do something, He already knows exactly who He’s working with. He factored that in from the start.

Every dumb mistake. Every moment of “well that could have gone better.” Every time you look around and think, surely there was someone more qualified available.

God knew.

Which means the calling was never about you being impressive enough on your own. It was always about you being willing enough to show up and trust Him to help you do it.

Because talent isn’t just the things that come easy.

Sometimes talent looks like stubbornness. The kind that keeps getting up to check calves in the middle of the night. Sometimes talent looks like compassion. The kind that convinces a sick calf to drink one more bottle while you’re humming nonsense songs and negotiating like a hostage mediator. Sometimes talent looks like joy. The kind where you step back and watch a little Jersey who couldn’t stand three days ago bounce around the pen like she just discovered gravity is optional.

And suddenly you realize something.

Maybe the talent God gave you isn’t the obvious thing. Maybe it’s simply the ability to love what He asked you to do.

Because for whatever reason, the calling God put on my life seems to involve spending my days and nights taking care of a bunch of Jersey calves.

Feeding them. Arguing with them. Celebrating when they finish a bottle like they just won the Olympics.

And the strange part is…I absolutely love it.

Which makes me think maybe the real gift isn’t the talent itself. Maybe the real gift is that God somehow managed to wire our hearts so that the work He calls us to do becomes something we wouldn’t trade for anything.

Even if it does occasionally involve arguing with a 50-pound espresso-colored calf about why she should, in fact, stand up today.

And honestly?

If that’s the gift I get to give back to Him…I’ll take it.