Design Specs

Dayna Hackett Bickham at age 16 

The Younger Version of Me

I was sixteen, working as a waitress at a locally owned fast food restaurant called Dean-o’s. Think Mel’s Diner with me as the teenage version of Alice.

I loved that job because my best friend worked there too.

Now I grew up in a small town, only about 3000 people lived there, and it seemed a large portion of those citizens were either kin to me or knew my family. I often could not “stop by” the grocery store without my parents knowing before I ever got home. So there were very few opportunities to pretend to be someone I wasn’t: except at work.

See what happened was….

Girls like to flirt and at 16 and I was honing my flirting skills. Add to that a cute out-of-town boy and my flirt would pick up an accent. (I was such a drama queen and a bit of an Anglophile, so I always picked either a British accent or an Irish accent.)

With (bad) accent in tow, I would take his order, flirting with my eyes and smile and wait for that question, “where are you from?”

And so my story-telling would begin.

See, I have always been able to spin a good story, even when I used it for something as pedestrian as flirting.

I bet you are no different.

You may not be a story teller, but somewhere, in the back of your mind there is a memory of you doing something silly as a kid. That silly story probably has a connection to who you are at the core of you.

For me I was 1) quirky 2) imaginative and 3) light-hearted.

Now, over 20 years have passed and I am not much different from that 16 year old girl, though now I leave the flirting for just my husband. Those three traits are still at the core of who I am. God designed me that way.

Now Your Turn

Close your eyes and think of a time when you were a kid and you had a moment that was fun and carefree. Now answer these two questions:

1) What about that moment was fun or made you happy?

2) What does that moment say about who you were and are at the core of you?

Finding our purpose is not wrapped up in mystery. It has more to do with how God designed you in the first place than you know. Don’t discount yourself. Who you are at the core is who God wants to use. The Manufacturer always knows what they made the “thing” for and how to use it the right way. God made you for a purpose and He did not get the design wrong.

Discussion Question: Did you ever pretend to have an accent?