Wrestling with God

I have been wanting to share something with my blogger family for quite some time now, but just haven’t found the time to sit down and really put my heart into the writing. Or maybe I have had the time, but have had fear about putting my heart so out on the line.

However, with some encouragement from my closest friends, I have decided it’s time.

For those of you that don’t know me or don’t know me well, I have had a long time passion for Women’s Ministry. I have taught several Bible studies over the years in various Women’s Ministries. God has penetrated my heart over the years for Women. I just love women. I love being able to watch them grow spiritually. I love being able to connect with them. I just love everything that comes with that.

I have always envisioned that my ministry would one day be the Director of a Women’s Ministry for whatever church we were attending. I feared that my past would prohibit that from happening, but tried to trust that God was not tugging at my heart for no reason.

We began going to our church, Providence Church pretty much from its inception, which now is over 2 years. Both Bry and I loved the church from the very beginning and knew that God had called us to be there. Over the course of the past couple of years, I have played a big role in our Women’s Ministry by starting the Women’s Bible studies as well as planning the Women’s retreats (with an amazing team each year) for the past 2 years. I have also helped getting some other ministries going. I say this, not to toot my own horn, but to tell you where I have been over the past couple of years. During the course of this time period, my husband became involved in the Elder process at our church.

He became official in May of this year. The next step for our church was to put Deacons in place to run the various ministries for our church. Here was my chance. I was so excited as I was sure they would have to logically chose me to play the role for the Women’s Ministry. And guess what? I was asked to go through the Deacon training along with a very dear friend of mine. I thought that my ministry was finally coming into play as God had pictured it for me.

Or was that my picture? My ministry was coming into play, it just started looking very different after the very first weekend of the Deacon Training. I spent the next 2 weeks really wrestling with God and honestly fighting him. I went through a whirlwind of emotions those 2 weeks. The more I prayed, the more discontent I felt about becoming a Deacon. How could this be though? I had wanted this soooooo bad. And I really wanted to serve the ladies at our church more than anything. I wanted to make a difference.

But there was something in my spirit that just wasn’t quite right. I couldn’t find peace. So, I started the blame game. I started blaming others as to why this wasn’t going to work. I thought….well, I can’t share this role. So, if I have to share the role, I’ll just not do it. But the funny thing was, I really deep, down wanted to share the role with my dear friend. We compliment each other in so many ways. Her strengths are so my weaknesses. And with 3 small children at home, she would be my perfect mate.

My struggle was not with her or with anyone, but with myself and with God. God was clearly telling me to lay it down. Lay it down my Child….lay it down. That’s all I could hear in my heart and my head when I prayed. Oh, and know that I prayed a little extra just to be sure my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me.

I could hardly believe that God was wanting me to lay down my dream. Notice, I said “my dream?” This has been my baby. I can’t just give that up God. Seriously, why are you doing this to me? I was full of questions.

However, after many tears and much prayer and several long conversations with my husband, I knew in my heart I had to let it go. I had to let go and let God. Man, I teach that all the time, but when push comes to shove and I actually had to do it, it was painful. Obedience isn’t always easy at first. Taking that leap of faith to the unknown is so hard.

But I will tell you, when I woke the next morning, I had that peace that passeth all understanding. I can’t even tell you the difference I felt in my heart. It was unbelievable.

However, my journey was not over. As I began telling the appropriate people that I was laying it down, it was painful to my pride to be honest. It was hard. Every part of me still wanted to hold onto it someway, somehow. But I knew what I had to do.

As I walked away from the role, not the church or serving in our church, I wasn’t sure where God was going to take me. Now remember, my husband is an Elder, so I’m not going anywhere and I will still be able to be involved in the Women in our church, it’s just going to look very different than what I thought.

During this whole process, I felt this tug at my heart to pick up my Romans Bible study that I wrote about 4 years ago and start thinking about the publishing process. I ignored it at first until my husband said: “Honey, now that you aren’t going to be leading the Women’s Ministry, you should really think about working on your Bible study and on writing other things.” Seriously, did God tell him to say that?

As the weeks go on, I’ll be updating you more on the study, but for now, just bear with me. Long story short, I was put in contact with an editor (yes, a real editor that helps publish real books!) and she told me that the first thing I need to do is go to a Writer’s Conference. She told me that the best one to go to is the Glorieta Writer’s Conference in NM that is only once a year. Guess when that once a year is? October! Both Bry and I felt that I was to go.

Looking back over my month, I see why God was whewing me to lay down my commitments for now so that I could attend this conference. I know that He has BIG plans for me. I don’t know what that means or what that looks like and right now, I am not even going to try to guess. I am just going to go where He has me right here and right now. I know that He has a HUGE lesson for me over this next year. Again, I don’t know what that looks like, but I’m excited to walk down this path to see what it will be. I know that it will be a huge growing experience for me.

With that said, I will attend the Writer’s Conference next week. I don’t know that I will ever become a published author, but I really believe that God will have me more involved in Bible studies than I ever thought. Even if that’s just writing studies that I teach. It’s all exciting.

One thing I will be doing is launching a website (thanks for my friend Andrea) over the next month that I will call my Ministry website. I am not even sure where this will take me as of yet. All I know is, I am going to do it. I currently have a blog up in the meantime just with an outline of the Bible study that I am currently teaching at church. You can feel free to view this at Connected to Him Ministries.

I would ask for your coverage in prayers as I am at the conference. Pray that I am rested and that I retain all that is there to learn. Pray that my heart is encouraged and not discouraged. Pray that I don’t get ahead of God. Pray that I rest in His Hand.

Thank you for reading my heart. And thank you to my dear, close, heart friends for walking with me on this journey. I am more thankful for you than you could ever imagine. Your encouragement has meant more to me than you will ever know.