When God Met Me at the Kitchen Sink

This season of my life has been deeply humbling, but it has also brought a clarity I don't believe I could have gained any other way. The other day, I stood at my kitchen sink washing dishes. Nothing extraordinary or particularly inspiring. Just another morning filled with the ordinary responsibilities of life. I had grocery shopping to do, a menu to plan, laundry to fold, and a home to care for.

My husband and I are determined to free ourselves from the bondage of debt, so every grocery trip requires careful planning. Every dollar has a purpose. At the same time, my body is still recovering from ankle injuries that have challenged me physically and emotionally, and somewhere in the middle of all of this, I had come to a place of what I call merciful surrender.

I had surrendered to where God has me, but surrendering to a season and understanding its purpose are not always the same thing.

When Everything I Thought Was Purpose Became Quiet

There was a time when my mornings looked very different, I would wake up with a sense of urgency, eager to exercise my brain, memorize new Bible verses, work through algebra problems, learn something new, and strengthen my understanding of how the mind and body function.I would spend hours in my office studying, taking courses, expanding my knowledge, and thinking about how I could use everything I had learned to help others.

I worked on creating content for Instagram, developing my website, and finding ways to reach people who might benefit from what I had discovered.

And my intentions were sincere.

I have experienced the effects of childhood trauma and mental and emotional suffering. Through my own journey, I have learned so much about the nervous system, our thought patterns, the body's responses to trauma, and the incredible ways God designed us. I want to share that knowledge. I want people to know that suffering does not always have to remain their permanent reality, that healing is possible. That understanding how we were designed can help us begin to recognize the patterns that have kept us bound.

Most importantly, I want them to see how beautifully God's Word speaks to the very things we experience in our minds and bodies. That desire has not left me, but the striving has grown quiet. And in the quiet, God began showing me something I had overlooked.

Lord, Is This Really My Purpose?

As I stood washing those dishes, I glanced at the clock. I still needed to go grocery shopping. I needed to make sure our meals would stretch throughout the week. I had laundry waiting and other household responsibilities calling for my attention, and suddenly, tears began rolling down my face. I looked at the dishes in front of me and asked:

"Lord, is this it? Washing dishes? Making grocery lists? Planning meals? Folding laundry? Is this my purpose?"

It was an honest question, not necessarily one of rebellion or resentment, but one that came from a heart trying to understand. I had spent so much time learning, preparing, growing, and dreaming about how God might use me. Was this really where He wanted me?

I have come to believe that God often speaks to us in the quietest moments, through thoughts that bring us back to the truth of His Word, but we have to become quiet enough to listen. We have to lay down our expectations long enough to recognize that His ways are not always the ways we imagined. As I stood there, a thought settled in my heart:

Your purpose is exactly where you are right now.

I wrestled with it. "Here, Lord? At my kitchen sink?"

How Could I Have Missed Something So Simple?

My response reminded me of the disciples. For three years, they walked with Jesus. They watched Him heal the sick, restore sight to the blind, raise the dead, and turn water into wine.

They heard Him teach about the Kingdom of Heaven. They witnessed His authority, His compassion, and His power yet, even after seeing all these things, they still asked questions that revealed how much they had yet to understand.

I used to wonder how they could walk so closely with Jesus and still miss what He was teaching them, and there I was standing at my kitchen sink, asking a question that revealed how easily I, too, could overlook what was right in front of me.

As I continued thinking about my purpose, my heart was brought back to the life of Jesus.

The King of Kings.

The Son of God.

The One through whom all things were created.

He left the glory of heaven and clothed Himself in human flesh. He entered our broken world, experienced the limitations of humanity, walked among ordinary people, and lived a life of humility. And why did He come?

To serve.

Jesus said: "For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." — Mark 10:45 (ESV)

There it was, the answer I had been searching for. Not in another course, in another book, not in a new business strategy or a perfectly planned morning routine, but in the very life of Jesus Christ.

Two Kingdoms. Two Completely Different Ways of Living.

I began thinking about how upside down the values of this world are when compared with the Kingdom of Heaven.

The world teaches us to pursue recognition. To climb higher, accumulate more, to establish ourselves, and to become important enough that others will serve us. We measure purpose by productivity, income, influence, accomplishments, and how many people know our names.

Even our desire to help others can become entangled with the pressure to build something visible and successful.

But Jesus introduced an entirely different Kingdom.He taught that greatness is found in humility. That the first shall be last, that those who desire to become great must become servants, and then He demonstrated it.

In John 13, Jesus, knowing who He was and where He had come from, took a towel, knelt before His disciples, and washed their feet.

Think about that. The hands that created the universe washed the dusty feet of men. He did not need to establish His identity through status or power. He knew exactly who He was. And because He knew who He was, He was free to serve. What a beautiful picture of true identity.

Jesus spent much of His earthly life in ordinary places. He grew up in a humble home, worked as a craftsman, attended the synagogue, taught God's Word, walked dusty roads, shared meals, and cared for the people who crossed His path. He did not come to teach humanity how to build an empire of personal success.

He came to reveal the Father, came to show us love, to serve, and ultimately, He came to give His life for us.

Suddenly, my kitchen sink looked very different.

Maybe I Had Been Looking for Purpose in the Wrong Places

I began to realize that I had associated my purpose with what I could accomplish, with what I could create, what I could learn, how many people I could reach, and how much of an impact I could make. While none of those desires are necessarily wrong, I was beginning to understand that purpose is not limited to the things we build. It is also expressed in the way we live.

My purpose is not on hold because my ankles are healing, it is not on hold because our finances require me to be careful, it is not on hold because I am spending more time caring for my home than developing my business, and it is certainly not on hold because my days look ordinary.

Perhaps this season is teaching me that the most meaningful work is not always the most visible. A clean dish may not change the world, a folded towel may never receive recognition, a carefully planned grocery list may seem insignificant, but the love, faithfulness, humility, and willingness to serve behind those actions matter.

I can serve my family with joy rather than resentment, I can steward what God has provided rather than despise what we currently lack, I can care for my body with patience instead of constantly fighting against the limitations of this season, and I can stop treating the ordinary responsibilities of life as interruptions to my purpose. Perhaps they are some of the very places where my purpose is being lived out.

I Can Still Serve With Everything God Has Taught Me

The beautiful thing is that surrender does not mean abandoning the desires God has placed in my heart. I still love learning. I still want to teach people about the nervous system, the mind, the effects of trauma, and the incredible connection between our physical design and biblical truth. I still want to share what I have learned through my own journey. Perhaps I don't have to rush to build a platform before I can begin serving. Maybe God is inviting me to live what I have learned before I become so consumed with teaching it.

If someone crosses my path who is struggling emotionally, I can listen, if someone asks me about trauma and the nervous system, I can share what I know, if someone is living under the weight of fear, shame, or old thought patterns, I can offer encouragement and point them toward the truth of God's Word, and when I enter a room, I can choose to bring the steadiness, gentleness, and peace that come from being rooted in Christ.

Not because I have all the answers, but because I know the One who does.

I don't need thousands of followers to love the person standing in front of me. I don't need a successful website to encourage someone who is hurting, and I don't need a title, an audience, or a perfectly organized plan to reflect the character of Jesus.

I can serve right here. Right now. With what God has already placed in my hands. And perhaps that is the lesson I needed most.

The Prayer That Changed My Perspective

As I stood at the sink, wiping away my tears, my heart began to shift. I was no longer asking God to show me something greater than the life I was living. Instead, I began asking Him to help me live this life well.

"Thank You, Lord. If this is where You have me, then I will serve You here. I will wash these dishes with gratitude, I will care for my home with love, I will plan our meals and steward our finances faithfully. I will serve my husband and family to the best of my ability. I will care for this body You have given me as it continues to heal.

And when You place someone before me who needs encouragement, understanding, or wisdom, I will freely share what You have allowed me to learn. When I walk into a room, let me bring Your peace. When I speak, let my words reflect Your truth. When I serve, let it be an expression of Your love, and when I begin to measure my worth by what I accomplish, remind me again of the King who knelt to wash feet."

The Kingdom Is Not Built on Being Served

I don't know what the next season will look like. Perhaps there will be opportunities to teach, write, create, and reach more people. Maybe doors will open that I cannot yet see, but I am beginning to understand that I don't need to know what comes next to be faithful with what is in front of me today.

Jesus never taught us that our value comes from the size of our influence. He taught us to love God and love our neighbors. He taught us to be faithful with what we have been given.

That greatness in His Kingdom looks like servanthood, and maybe that is what this humbling season has been about.

Not the loss of purpose, but the purification of how I understand it. Not the end of my desire to help others, but the freedom to help others without needing to accomplish something impressive first. I had been so focused on what I hoped to do for God someday that I was overlooking the opportunities to love and serve Him today.

And He met me there. Not behind a desk filled with books, while completing another lesson, not while developing a strategy to reach more people, but while washing dishes.

Because sometimes the most profound lessons God teaches us happen in the most ordinary places. And sometimes, finding our purpose begins when we stop asking how we can become greater and start asking how we can serve more faithfully.

"Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men" Colossians 3:23

Today, I am learning that purpose is not always a destination to reach, sometimes, it is a life to be lived, and today, that life begins right here.

At my kitchen sink.

Gabby Rodriguez