“Your best ability is availability.”

One of the several thousand amazing things about my wife is that she had PERFECT ATTENDANCE for 13 straight years from Kindergarten through High School. She’s practically perfect in every way, so it should come as no surprise that her school attendance was merely following her well-established pattern!

Meanwhile, a rogue rhinovirus from a classmate’s unwashed hand or a stray streptococcus from an uncovered cough would reliably leave me in a state of “Mostly Dead and Unlikely to Survive” at least once per year when I was growing up. And then after a miraculous recovery, I would finish the month’s worth of missed schoolwork in about 45 minutes and be waved along to the next grade. As time progressed, I continued to rack up “absences” not as much due to illness, but for my insistence on turning “serious lessons” into sardonic satire; I was often evicted to my special seat in the hallway. If there had been a “Classes Missed” policy that would have rendered me ineligible for Valedictorian, I’m sure it would have been eagerly enforced!

But ultimately, consistency and reliability are real superpowers. Flashes of brilliance rarely result in lasting impact, but indelible fingerprints of faithfulness help shape lives into beautiful masterpieces. We each have unique gifts that can encourage those around us and help our teams thrive if we are simply consistent in our character and conduct.

The first step, and sometimes the most difficult one, is just showing up…you can’t contribute if you’re not in the classroom. And honestly, I think the Perfect Attendance Award is actually more impressive than being Valedictorian. But can you imagine if the Valedictorian MARRIED the Perfect Attendance Princess? If that ever happened, I bet you wouldn’t forget that fairy-tale worthy firework display

Galatians 6:9