At first, it seems like everyone has a team,

And you’re the only one left on the bench --

Like perhaps you made a mistake by coming to this college.

Everyone around you seems so much holier, more chosen, more gifted,

And it seems like maybe you misheard like this word wasn’t meant for you.

The word that told you to come to this place was no more than a wild goose chase,

And God was never calling out to you,

But then you start your journey --

This journey of chasing after your calling.

Is that God calling or is that you calling out to what you want to hear screaming back?

Is that God calling, or are you following the voice of the crowd?

Is this God’s calling?

So you chase,

You chase after God and His calling on your life,

Praying that if you just run fast enough He’ll reveal everything you wish.

The bible says, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you,”

But it feels like every time I come to Him, He takes two steps away.

I pray that He’ll draw close,

And I look to become what He called me to be, to let the potter mold His clay into a masterpiece He can call Precious.

But I realize that’s where I’ve gone wrong --

I pray to become precious when I am precious, I am the daughter of a mighty King, unlike any other thing.

Though He may mold me, He loves me with my cracks and crevices because that is who I am, and that is who He loves.

As Isaiah 43:4 says, “Others were given in exchange for you. I traded their lives for yours because you are precious to me. You are honored, and I love you.”

He loves us for our struggles, not despite them,

And He loves our struggles because we try, we cry, we do our best to be who He want us to be.

We try to hide the struggles we face, thinking others couldn’t embrace us for who we are.

We smile when a frown is etched into our hearts with pain from the past that seems to outlast any good thing that comes our way.

We learn to mask our identities, mold ourselves into the person we want to appear to be,

And We lose ourselves slowly to the fakeness of our masks,

We lose ourselves to the shapeshifting and the deceit.

The masks we wear are our shields but terrible, cracked shields that threaten to break with just the right amount of pressure and leave us open to the attacks of the Enemy.

But in Psalm 28:7 it reads, “The LORD is my strength and my shield; My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped; Therefore my heart exults, And with my song I shall thank Him.”

An awesome shield, an almighty that will not break no matter what comes to destroy it,

A shield that doesn’t wish to mask us but wishes to heal us, to expose our wounds only to heal them with the most soothing of medicines.

The masks we wear are hard to bear, and honestly, God is not much easier,

But God is a good pain, one that will not bring turmoil but one that will allow you to live through that turmoil in order to bring life to others.

The seed that God has implanted in you gives life, it does not bring death.

The seed gives you powers to overcome the enemy in your life, in the lives of others, to heal the sick and broken, to bring the Devil to His knees because we have the power,

And He is allowed to give only what God knows we can take.

We have a seed within us that must be realized just as Clark Kent needed, but to realize that he had the potential to fly

We have great power.

And just as Uncle Ben said, with great power comes great responsibility,

Our responsibility is to spread the Gospel to all nations.

To love our neighbors, whether they be black, white, Muslim, or gay,

Our responsibility is to love those next to us, to love the homeless and the voices being smothered.

Magneto was right in saying, “We are the future,” but the thing he got wrong is that everyone else still matters.

We are the future because we are eternity, we are the body of Christ,

But if we neglect our neighbors are we truly the body of Christ?

So just like Banner, we must always be angry at the injustice our neighbor faces.

We must fight to give them the mike and have their voices heard.

As Captain Rogers once said, “There’s only one God,”

And that one God would look down at the church with tears because there are so many churches and his church has all but disappeared.

We must fight those who long to keep the oppressed at their current state,

And we mustn’t turn away and allow the church to continue down this wretched path, we must see what is true.

On the brightest day, and in the blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight.

Let those who worship evil’s might, beware my power -- God’s great light --

For if we only use that light we might shine in our darkest hours.

Just like Wonder Woman, we must learn not to preach hate and warfare when we are disciples of peace and love,

But most importantly of the all living God,

We are His children, His followers, His disciples.

If only a collection of us would assemble to save the day, they’d never see us coming.