We’re all different, and we’re all blessed with different gifts.

The music maestro. The astrophysicist. The gifted orator. The person who somehow understands the mystery of Excel spreadsheets.

Sometimes we know what our gifts are from an early age. Sometimes they take time to grow and evolve. And sometimes we discover that the things we once thought were terribly important aren’t actually the things that matter most.

GCSE results were out this week.

Some young people will have worked incredibly hard and got the results they hoped for. Some will have worked just as hard and been disappointed. Some will already have a very clear idea of what comes next, while others won’t have the foggiest.

At 16, I had very different ideas about which of my gifts were useful and which might shape my future.

Now that I’m a proper grown up — allegedly — I place a much higher value on things that can’t easily be counted.

Kindness. Compassion. The ability to sit beside someone when life is horrible and not try to fix it. Making someone laugh. Listening. Serving. Showing mercy. Helping another person discover something in themselves that perhaps they couldn’t see before.

There isn’t a GCSE in any of those things.

Romans 12 reminds us that we don’t all have the same function. We aren’t supposed to. We each bring something different to the body of Christ, and our gifts aren’t given to make us better than the person beside us. They’re given so that we can use them and add them to the collective skill pot.

So if you’re celebrating results this week, celebrate them loudly. You earned that celebration.

And if the letters and numbers on that piece of paper weren’t what you’d hoped for, please remember that at 16 you have barely begun to discover what you’re capable of.

Some of the most valuable things you will bring to this world may never appear on a certificate at all.

Whatever your gifts turn out to be, may you recognise them, nurture them, and use them generously.

The world needs what you have to give. ❤️

— Laura