I am blessed to be a part of the launch team for Church of the Small Things by Melanie Shankle. Texas Aggie and San Antonio girl Melanie Shankle’s fourth book takes us through her heartfelt and hilarious worldview. She covers topics like marriage, motherhood, friendship, sisterhood, writing, and the church.
(Side note: San Antonio painter Heather Gauthier created the amazing cover art. The Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond wrote the foreword. And my friend Harmony Harkema edited Church of the Small Things!)
11 favorite quotes from Church of the Small Things by Melanie Shankle
Early on in Church of the Small Things: The Million Little Pieces that Make Up a Life, Melanie challenges my perception. She discusses Jesus’ miracle of feeding the five thousand.
Melanie reminds us that God often uses unnamed and unappreciated daily acts of obedience in big ways. He asks us to show up in little, ordinary ways, and then he shows off:
The bottom line is, she didn’t do the glamorous thing; she did the faithful thing. She packed a lunch for her boy just like she’d 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 she’d probably admonished daily to “be kind and share with others,” wondering if it was falling on deaf ears.
Patience and humility
Melanie encourages us to embrace patience and humility in our walk with Jesus, to serve him and others without expectation:
We are in God’s 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.
Nothing is wasted when we view it through the lens of what God has for us in whatever life brings our way. … We need to look for God in the ordinary, everyday things, to pursue our dreams and live our lives and be faithful in the small things, because those are the moments that prepare us for the next thing.
Friendship and sisterhood
She reminds us to joyfully cheer on the successes of our friends and sisters, instead of competing with one another:
There is something so powerful about seeing success mixed with true humility and the heart of someone willing to be forgotten so that those coming behind her can achieve even more.
Sometimes our role is to be brighter than the sun, and sometimes our role is to sit back and cheer on our friends as their gifts are on display.
Hospitality and gratitude
Melanie celebrates her grandmother’s legacy of simple hospitality and encourages us to be grateful for each day:
Me-Ma never worried about whether or not the house was clean or if she had on makeup. She welcomed everyone with a hug, offered them something to eat, and made them feel so incredibly welcome. She showed me what real hospitality is and that it doesn’t involve waiting to have people over until you finally buy a new couch or remodel the bathroom. And maybe, most of all, she showed me that a simple life that revolves around loving your family doesn’t equate to a small life.
When you come face-to-face with mortality and how fleeting all of this really is, there is such an overwhelming sense of gratitude for every single moment, an appreciation for the gift of picking up your kids from car pool, having friends at work that you enjoy, sipping the perfect cup of coffee by the fire on a cold winter day.
Courage and motherhood
She inspires us to be courageous, especially in front of our kids:
We can’t prepare them for the real world if we’re constantly protecting them from the real world. We can’t teach them to be brave if all they see from us is that we are scared.
Let’s live in a way that teaches our children the importance of loving our neighbors and that peers aren’t our competition. When we begin to see our own value, we realize that no one else’s successes or accomplishments diminish our own, but rather we see that God has a unique path for each of us.
Confidence in his protection and provision
Most importantly, in Church of the Small Things, Melanie reminds us to have confidence in his provision. She wants us to trust God’s protection in every little and every big thing:
Deep down, we struggle to believe God is going to lead us to what is best for us. It’s our internal voice that whispers we will never be enough, so we work and worry and feel like we must do something big, something huge to prove our worth and to make sure our life matters. We have to host a conference, start a movement, adopt fifteen kids, or fight human trafficking to really matter. Which are all great things, but can cause us to lose sight of the small things that can also change a life: bringing dinner to a sick neighbor, smiling at a waitress who’s having a bad day, reading to your kids before bed, and simply praying for someone going through a rough time.
He will be the wall of fire all around. He will be the glory in our midst and whisper to us that our lives, no matter how small they may seem to us, are enough because he is enough.
Whether I’m packing my kindergarten daughter’s lunch for the next day, taking my grandmother to the doctor, or doing a load of laundry, I know that my ordinary acts of gratitude and obedience are not lost on God. Nothing is wasted. He is always at work in the small (and the big) things.