PLACE assessment

I decided to take a free assessment today through a career network site to help remind me of my strengths and weaknesses as I prepare to dive into the job search more in a few weeks. PLACE stands for Personality, Learning your spiritual gifts, Abilities, Connecting your passion with a ministry, and your Experiences of life. It took me through a personality inventory, spiritual gifts inventory, abilities inventory, passions questionnaire, and reflections on life experiences section. I was really intrigued by all the things that came out. They don't connect the dots for you, but it does give you a starting point to see where you might serve best or work best.

My personality: off the charts melancholic with a little choleric (think a bit bossy, methodical control freak... :-) )

My top 3 spiritual gifts:
Prophecy- They define this as "the special attribute given by God's Spirit to members of the body of Christ to proclaim the Word of God boldly and with confidence."
Giving
Encouragement/Exhortation

My abilities: Conventional (as opposed to realistic, investigative, artistic, social, and enterprising)
Conventional basically means I like order and to be in a chain of command w/ clearly defined rules and expectations. (yes, yes, yes!)

My demonstrated passions:
Influencing
Defending
Repairing (This can include broken lives, they say. I am not a mechanic :-) )

My felt passions:
Infants
Children of divorce
Young married couples

I have that little jingle from the Amway commercial in my head. "So now you know..."

I am not quite sure how all these insights will fit together for me both in my next job and in plugging into a new ministry. But I am excited to see how they might! I was a little surprised to see that "speaking the Word of God boldly" came up as my number 1. I know that I used to do that a lot a long time ago and I have been very meek in the last 5 years compared to what I used to be. It makes me sad sometimes realizing all the missed opportunities I've had to share truth simmering in my heart. It makes me wonder what of that passion from of old I still can have come out and be used for God's glory. What comes to mind is 1 Corinthians 13:1-2 where Paul says "If I speak in tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing...."
Jesus gives us the command to "Love your neighbor as yourself." My personality, melancholic, is naturally critical, revengeful, pessimistic, and controlling. Ouch!! There were other qualities that were more encouraging, but I know that these qualities of my flesh can come out when I am desiring to "speak the Word of God boldly." I pray that God will continue to mold my heart to love Him and my neighbor much more and that the Word I speak most of is the grace and love of our Savior. I have so much to learn about how to use this gift!