When I was a teenager I worked at a local camp, running the snack bar and helping in the kitchen. One of the tasks was drying and sorting the silverware. After a large tray of knives, forks and spoons came out of the industrial dishwasher it was dumped onto a counter lined with towels, where we took more towels to rub the pile down before sorting them into their proper bins.

In that utilitarian camp environment there were only three categories: knives, forks, and spoons. We didn’t have steak knives and butter knives, salad forks and dessert forks – only what was necessary to get food from plate to mouth as quickly as possible.

In my mother’s house, though, there was a silverware drawer that held not only the usual flatware, but special items also. You had to dig around in the back to find them: sugar spoons and olive forks, pickle forks and demitasse spoons; a commemorative bicentennial pie server. My father’s baby spoon. A family heirloom from Denmark. They rarely saw the light of day, but come Christmas or some other special occasion, she would reach into the back of that drawer to find just the right utensil for the celebratory meal.

Like those odd and mismatched pieces in my mother’s drawer, some of us feel out of place in life. We don’t fit in the same bins as others. We discover that there there isn’t a place for us at all, and perhaps we feel awkward and useless – different – in the back of life’s drawer, hidden away in the dark.

Perhaps our gifts or our calling don’t fall in line with expectation. Perhaps our convictions make the people around us uncomfortable.

In any case, we have learned that being different has gotten us sent to the back of the drawer of others’ opinions.

But we serve a God who throws banquets. And at his table, all of his utensils are sought out, especially the ones overlooked in the back of the drawer, and used in a glorious gathering of purpose. We are all given an honored place at his table.

Are you one of the awkward ones, a misfit wondering what your purpose could be? Have you been sorted and labeled by a world that would rather you stay out of sight? Are you overlooked and unpolished?

My mother kept a special spoon in the drawer, just for me. It commemorates my birthday and has my name imprinted on the back. Every year I ate my birthday meal with my special spoon.

Like that one-of-a-kind spoon, your Creator designed you with specific plans for your particular gifts.

Some of us have skills that are always useful. We are frequently sought out by others for the roles we fill. And some of us have a unique purpose that no one else can fulfill. But all of us are kept and treasured by the God who sees us. The God who designed us to display his glory in a specific and beautiful way.

The God who will not abandon the work of his hands.

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.

1 Corinthians 12:4-6