Category: 1 - Let the Son Shine

I Didn't Get the Memo 01/28/2010

Sometimes, it really is all in the details.

I knew going into this whole obedience thing, that one day God would ask me to share more than the already less than comfy surface testimony He is working out in my life. One day was supposed to be blurry. So far in the future that I couldn't even see it clearly. Turns out one day is today. Today is one day, possible of many, that I would be asked to share the details.

God equips us for every good work. That's a fact. Nowhere in that promise does He say that we'll be prepared or even alerted. Good thing, because had I known what He had planned, I might have stayed home and hidden from the opportunity to do good. All difficult situations are opportunities to do good, but having a heads up brings with it the possibility of running away. Thankfully, I didn't get the memo that today was going to hold an opportunity I would have undoubtedly passed up. A cup I would have prayed God to let pass, instead of overflow.

Sitting at a table made to seat seven women in my moms' group, I felt like a complete reject among the empty chairs. Stepping into this role of table hostess in a ministry I love dearly wasn't a comfortable act of obedience as it was, but when only two ladies sat with me, I felt like I was the reason people stayed away. Even when you're beating yourself up, thinking of yourself too much is thinking too much of yourself. I know that. I just forget that I know that. Content in my pity party, balloons and all, I wondered what it was about me that kept them away.

It wasn't about me. Big shocker there. No, it was God that arranged the seating today. He just didn't need to let me know that until I could handle it with praise.

As I drove home, reflecting on one awesome speaker and one awesome time of discussion, the Lord revealed part of His plan and part of His awesomeness in Sovereignty. Each of the ladies at my table were predestined to sit together, to share together, to be encouraged together. All three of us.

Three seemed like such a small number at first glance. Now I am amazed at how our God worked in, on, and through THREE women at one tiny table, this morning! We each needed to hear that God is in control. In our own ways, we needed that covering of Truth. We also needed the details that lie underneath. Sharing first, the overall way that Christ has been at work, then getting deeper into the ways we need to stop our own ideas of what needs to be worked on, things felt really fruitful and wonderful. The intimate setting allowed for digging into matters and for opening up those hidden parts that want to be ignored in us. It also made way for a very personal exchange after the group had dismissed.

Today, I shared some details. Details that once held me prisoner and now are part of the beautiful way in which the Lord saw fit to set me free. I'm humbled that they helped another sister in Christ. She was visibly encouraged in a way that encouraged me, but our Father didn't stop there! Her details were offered up as a means of growing me and filling me and refueling me in one of the areas of life I struggle with most right now. I left with a new gratitude and appreciation for the circumstance I'm so quick to feel defeated by. Hope pumped through each bit of me and I would have missed that had we not shared with one another.

God didn't send us the memo that today was in fact that one day we'd been secretly hoping might never come and instead He sent us a good and perfect gift in the details of our less than perfect lives!

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