[For the detailed background story, please read my About page first.]
Election night, Trump vs. Biden. We won’t know who won until days or even weeks from now. Here in our tiny state, the verdict is in, though. After my eight-month run for Vermont House representative, the liberal incumbents have beaten me to the punch.
Surprisingly, it doesn’t feel like much of a loss. I’m secretly relieved. Politics is such an emotionally grating business. I don’t like who I become when I constantly feel on the defense.
I’m thinking back to tonight’s brief chat with one of my sign wavers, a sweet 13-year-old boy. He told me how his dyslexia made him feel bad about himself, how it left him wondering what would become of him. I used my “celebrity status” to convince him he was capable and worthy; I named some great men in history who were dyslexic too. He looked so relieved, and I wanted to hug him so badly. It was a magical moment—thank you, God, for the opportunity to make a difference.
It occurs to me that maybe this was really the point of it all. How ironic would it be if God had me run for office just for this moment—to gain just enough local fame that a young teenage boy would look up to me and absorb my words of encouragement.
Will he look back to this election night 20 years from now and say that it was one of the pivotal moments in his life? Perhaps that’s wishful thinking, but I want to believe it.
God, you do work in mysterious ways, and who knows, this may be one of them. Please keep using me for your purposes. Show me how to get closer to you, how to love you more, and how to serve you better.