Antonio-ish

Tuesday I headed out of class to head to the Joseph Smith Building, where the weekly devotional would play in its huge auditorium. I was tired and not looking forward to writing a rough draft research paper and creating a PowerPoint presentation for Thursday. I was tired. I was...tired. The auditorium (how many seats does that thing have? At least 500) was almost completely empty.

Good ish #1: I opened my email to find a video of my niece from my sister. I plugged my earphones in and eagerly listened. Repeating after my sister, the little toddler told me "hi" and that she loved me. I watched it over and over and over and over and over.

Good ish #2: The devotional started, and I kept my earphones in to block out the way-too-loud volume they had goin' on. The speaker quoted the most amazing quote from George Eliot, referring to the famous violin-maker: "[God] could not make / Antonio Stradivari's violins / Without Antonio." (Listen to the whole talk here. It's worth your time.)

Why, that's blasphemous! I thought at first. Then I was like. Wow. Wait. That's. Actually true. I was amazed, because we all know that Antonio couldn't make Stradivarius violins without God--but do we ever consider the reverse? That He needs to use us to make wonderful things? Not because He is weak or incapable, but because He wants to do great things with us.

He wants us to do great things.