Just a Nobody

Amanda Woodiel ponders the Lord’s preference for people who seem, in the world’s eyes, to be insignificant, marveling at God’s merciful, generous love.

The more I read the Bible, the more I see the grace dripping from its pages. It is a love letter from the One who understands the human heart intensely well. It’s crazy to me that this ancient document can speak to a middle-aged woman two thousand years later, halfway around the world. But it doesn’t just speak to me — it knows me. It is the Word of God.

The thing I’ve noticed lately is how much God uses people who are “nobodys.” No, not uses them. He chooses them. He invites, collaborates, dances with, accomplishes through. This speaks to me especially because, as I have reflected, I have felt like “just a ____” multiple times throughout my life. Just a stay-at-home mom. Just a rural homemaker. Just a regular old church-goer.

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But in God’s economy, no one is ever “just a ____.” No one. He seems even to prefer the “just a” people of this world. David: just the youngest son of Jesse. Mary: just a teenage girl. Joseph: just a carpenter. The Holy Family: just poor folk. Peter: just your average fisherman (and maybe not an especially good one at that). Mary Magdalene: just a woman with a rough past. Elizabeth: just an old woman.

The Only Thing Necessary

The whole Bible, in fact, is full of “just a _____” people whom God uses in the salvation story. He chooses old people, young people, poor people, and sinners. The only thing necessary, it seems, is for these “just a ____” people to have goodwill toward God — that is, to be willing to say YES to what He’s asking. That’s it. That one thing transforms what the world deems an ordinary person into an ordinary person who will “set the world on fire,” to paraphrase Saint Catherine of Siena.

The canon of saints is the same way: saints who were just terrible students (Saint John Vianney), just angry people (Saint Francis de Sales), or just people with a past (Saint Augustine). Saint Francis of Assisi was once just a party-loving young nobleman. Saints Louis and Zélie were just parents. Saint Josephine Bakhita was just a slave. Saint Isidore was just a farmer. The list truly goes on and on. No one is below what God can and will do with just a simple assent of our will: our fiat. Saint Augustine had to take and read. Saint John Vianney had to study Latin. Saint Teresa of Calcutta had to answer a call within a call.

So that You Would Know

One day in Lent several years ago, before I had seen how God typically chooses the “just a” people of the world, I was feeling especially low. I was a stay-at-home mom with five small children living in a small house. My husband and I barely could pay our bills. We were, by most American standards, pretty much nobodys, and I was feeling it heavily. I took a walk around our neighborhood to pray the Rosary per my Lenten discipline that year.

When I came to the Second Sorrowful Mystery, the Scourging at the Pillar, a question welled up in me. I asked the Lord, “Why did you let yourself be beaten up like that? Why did you let people whom you had created unleash hate and pain on you?” I waited. And honestly, I was surprised by the thought that came into my head — both that He answered me and by what He answered. He said: “So that you would know that you are a Somebody.”

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As we round the corner to Easter, it is my prayer that you too would know that you are a Somebody. You are not “just a.” You are worth dying for. You are worth saving. You are beloved.

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