This past month or so, I've been reminded that doing God's work is a process. Just because you've been put on assignment or you've discovered His plan for you doesn't mean you're set. It means you've begun your journey, and to get through it, you are going to have to check in with Him all the time.
After my first two stops
on the Women of Faith tour, I knew that I wanted to go deeper, to connect more
with the women I was meeting across the country. I knew that my story and my
ministry were important, but I wanted to really bond with people. The trouble
was, I got so much feedback from so many different people that it was hard to
know who to listen to, what to take away from what everybody was saying. To get
to the heart of everything, though, I knew it would take feeling and hearing
Psalms 46:10:
Be still, and know that I
am God
I was going to make sense
not just of what my friends were telling me, but of what God was telling me, I
was going to have to get some alone time. As a mother of five, that is easier
said than done.
But God has a way of helping
you out if you begin to move in the direction He intends, and so little by
little, my schedule started clearing up last week: a couple kids had to go to a
sleepover, another had a birthday party to go to, Emmitt had to stay home a day
longer, and all of a sudden, I had some time! And so, after a monthly prayer
group meeting on Friday, I knew I had a chance, and I wasn't going to waste it.
I turned off my phone, and, to really ensure I had some solitude, I even
checked into a hotel. Once that door closed behind me, I just shut down, and
began to listen.
In that room, God turned
my speech upside down. I knew that my story, the one that God had put me on the
road to deliver, was about finding my voice. I had thought, before I got out on
the road and went to Oklahoma City, that it was about finding my voice in the
shadow of Emmitt's success, but in that hotel room God showed me something
different. He showed me that I was supposed to be sharing the story of my
mother's voice, and the effect its loss had on me.
My mother was a strong,
opinionated, loving woman. She meant so much to me, and when I was growing up I
looked to her for everything: advice, support, care and friendship, as well as
love. Her voice was always with me, but cancer took her very early, and when
she died, I was just 22. Her death left a huge hole in my life. I didn't know
where or how to find the love that I got from my mommy, and it took me years to
realize that I could turn to God, that the most important thing a person can
feel sometimes is that they are in God's will. I still miss my Mommy, but I
also feel so much stronger now, because as much as I loved her and as much as
she loved me, God has always and will always love me even more.
God had been showing that
to me for a long time, but I don't know that I would have been able to see it
if I hadn't gotten away from the chaos and the madness of my everyday life.
We've all gotta get quiet sometimes. We all need to find the time to be still,
to hear what God is saying to us. He is always talking, always sharing things
with us, but so often we don't notice it because we are bogged down in the
day-to-day mess that we all have.
And of course, there's no
real getting away from that day-to-day, either. Just a few hours later, after
I'd checked out of the room and was walking to my car, I found myself
immediately feeling guilty, worrying about Emmitt and the kids. But when I got
home, everything was fine: no fights, no broken bones, no chaos. It was like
that stillness had followed me back from the hotel room, and I can't wait to
share that with everybody over these next few weeks!!
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