What Is Your Platform?

      I have been thinking about this question ever since I attended the "Colorado ChristianWriter's Conference" in Estes Park last May.  Prior to that weekend, the only understanding I had of that word was a small stage for someone to stand on and publicly speak.  A platform was not something I wanted to encounter.

     While I was in Colorado, however, I experienced another understanding of that word.  It means everything if you desire to ever be a published writer.  My platform must help you believe that I know what I am talking about.  It must make you want to listen to me.  It must make me sound like I have something to offer that no one else does.  It requires me to "sell myself."

     I have spent many hours reading about "platforms" and how important they are.  It actually makes me really uncomfortable because as a Christian I have always felt like I needed to fade into the background and not draw attention to myself.  The attention should be on others rather than myself.  Therefore, it is really a stretch for me to consider building a platform.
     Dictionary.com gives us the definition of a platform as:

plat·formNoun/ˈplatfôrm/

1. A raised level surface on which people or things can stand.

2. A raised floor or stage used by public speakers or performers so that they can be seen by their audience. 

     I find the second definition interesting; "so that they can be seen by their audience."  "Being seen" is not always self-serving.  Being seen can make an impact.  Being seen can change the course of history.  Being seen can change someone's life.

     Helen Keller was seen and known around the world.  Her platform of being blind and deaf allowed her to make an impact on the world.  I know for me personally, every time I feel overwhelmed by something in my life I reflect on her and realize that if Helen Keller can learn to read and publicly speak when she is deaf and blind, I can overcome this obstacle.
     I think of Joni Eareckson Tada who has an international ministry, trains churches in special needs ministry, delivers wheelchairs around the world, shares the gospel around the world, and helps people at some of the darkest moments of their lives.  As a person affected by quadriplegia, she has a platform that I will never have.  She is able to be seen because of her disability and the courage she has had to not let it handicap her.
     Sometimes we have platforms that we are uncomfortable with.  They are platforms that we never would have chosen.  They may even be platforms that we are praying to be healed from but nonetheless, they are our platforms.  They give us a testimony.  They give us credibility in a certain area.  They make us unique.
     In 2 Corinthians 12:9 it says,
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me."
     Nothing is more evident to me than my weaknesses.  I have lots of them but the beautiful thing is that Christ's power can then rest on me and be seen.  Any weakness I have can bring glory to God.  Just as my strengths and gifts can be a platform for sharing about Christ, so can my weaknesses.  As a Christian my desire is not to sell myself, but to tell about Christ.  Ultimately I ask myself, what is the platform God has given me so you can see that I know what I am talking about when it comes to Christ's love?  What is the platform that God has given me to help you hear my testimony?  What is the platform that God has given me to help you see that Christ has something to offer that no one else does?

     So now I ask you, what is your platform?

Ryan

     Every year I look forward to the parade of little people that will enter my classroom.  As we meet each other I only know a few facts about them and they only know that I look like a grandma and I teach in "The Castle Room."
     A few years ago a student walked into my classroom and captured my heart within moments.  He was small in stature but had a huge heart in that tiny little body!  He blessed me and taught me so much that year.
     Ryan made me face one of my challenges.  I had a very hard time hearing him so I wore hearing aides the whole year (it helps when your husband is an Audiologist!).  I am so glad I did because I wouldn't want to have missed a thing he said!
     As I shared earlier, I teach a unit on "How to Be a Friend to Someone With a Disability" by Joni Eareckson Tada.  During the month the children in my classroom earn money to send to Joni to refurbish a wheelchair for a child in another country that needs one.  That particular year, the money was coming in rather slowly.  I wondered if the kids were not understanding and if the unit was meaningful to them.  We moved on to our next unit and the kids and I prayed for the rest of the money.
     Over the next couple of weeks Ryan shared with me that he was going to have a garage sale.  Each day he would mention someone knew that had donated something.  I really didn't think that much about it.  Looking back on it,  Ryan was so excited and I wish that I had slowed down to pay more attention.
     The morning of his garage sale, God woke me up.  I jumped out of bed and told my husband Bill to wake up because we needed to go to a garage sale.  I had an address and a subdivision but no map (for some reason I thought I could just find it).  We drove around for awhile and ended up stopping at their neighborhood center to look at a map.
     When we finally arrived at Ryan's house it was 10:30 a.m..  The garage door was closed and there wasn't a sale in sight.
     As soon as I rang the doorbell I heard someone yell, "Mrs. Boggess is here!   Mrs. Boggess is here!"                        When Ryan came to the door I asked him if he was still having a garage sale.  He told me that he did have one but they had finished.
     I said, "Well, do you have anything left?  I would like to buy something."
     Ryan immediately ran out the door and opened the garage door.  There were all kinds of things on the floor.  It looked like a garage sale that a 5 year-old had set up.  He had told me earlier in the week that he made some paintings for the garage sale so I asked him if there were any left.  Ryan showed me a couple and I fell in love with one and asked him if I could buy it.  He said, "Yes" and I asked him how much it was.  He told me it would cost 10 cents.
    I said, "Oh no, I think at least $5."
     I turned to Bill and asked him if he had a five and as he pulled out a ten he said that was all he had.  I handed Ryan the ten dollar bill and he started to put it in his money bag and said,
     "There is no change."
     I started laughing and said that was fine.  I looked at his bag full of money and asked him what he was going to do with it.
     Ryan, looked up at me with such sincerity and said, "It is for the wheelchair, Mrs. Boggess, it is for the wheelchair!"
     I started to cry and thanked him over and over again.  What an incredible moment I will never forget! It had not occurred to me that it was for the wheelchair and here he was continually thinking about it.  He raised more than enough money to send to Joni and her ministry.   His beautiful painting still hangs in my classroom to this day.