God Uses Brokenness

About a month ago, I felt God was wanting me to share some personal things about myself and how He has used those circumstances to make me a new person from the inside out.  I thought it would be to a group of 10 or 15 women in our church.  However, as we may be aware God is capable of doing exceedingly, abundantly more than we could ever imagine (Ephesians 3:20-21).

A week ago this past Tuesday, I was asked to be part of a presentation in our church on PathWay ,
 I am a new volunteer serving as a teacher with our middle school students.  I agreed and immediately discussed it with my husband when I got home that night.  I shared thoughts and ideas of what to share but told him I really was not comfortable doing this.  It was WAY OUTSIDE my comfort zone and mostly, I am a very private person not openly sharing with others about my life especially feelings.

God gave me the words to speak and I spoke on Sunday morning to our congregation which, from my perspective, was more full than I've ever seen it.  There were a lot of people there.  Here is what I had to say:

When I was a child, my dream was to be a teacher when I grew up.  I constantly pretended to be a teacher teaching my students.  When I arrived at college, I started out down the road to become a music teacher.  My second semester, I decided I just wanted to teach without music.   Then I realized I was going to be around kids all day and that was not something I wanted to do because at the wisdom filled age of 19 I knew what life was about.

Fast forward several years later.  Over the past couple of years, my husband, Robbie, has been encouraging me to go back to school to be a teacher.  I’ve explained to him that being a teacher nowadays is not like it was when we were in school.  Teachers have a very hard job and I was not interested in pursuing that.

Let me preface the following by telling you two key important things about me.  One, I am a planner and two, I tend to think in a black and white way living in a certain kind of box. 

A few months ago, PathWay passed out a flyer.  When reading the flyer, my heart quickened and I felt I needed to get involved.  They were seeking a math tutor.  Robbie and I spoke about it.  We then begin to pray about it.  Robbie said he was willing to keep our children so I could go tutor.  I told him thank you but I didn’t think I was going to do it.  God kept clearing my schedule so Tuesdays and Thursdays were open.

So I said yes to PathWay.  Ms. Ann and Ms. Terri said that one night a week would work.  So I began in September helping the middle school students.

You might think that 8 weeks of volunteering is not a lot of time but God has shown me so much in that “short” amount of time.  See, about a year and a half ago my heart was broken.  Oh to be honest, my dreams had been broken or thrown away for quite some time but a year ago was when our oldest son went to live with his dad under extenuating circumstances.  God has slowly been healing me but I found that with this healing a new heart has formed.

My PathWay kids have played a big part in just 8 weeks in that healing process because when you’re around children, you can’t sit in the corner and not interact.  They want to know about you.  They want to know why things have happened.  It is a situation where talking about your experiences in life not only allow them to get to know you but about your relationship with Christ because of how you’ve reacted and handled those experiences.

In working with PathWay, I am a teacher but not in the conventional way I believed it would happen.  God grants our desires as they align with His will and He never forgets those childhood dreams that He placed inside.

My heart is being open to understand each of these students, diligently pray for each one, and to a world that I never existed in my own backyard.  For me, this is my mission field and one day a week I’m physically there, hopefully, making a difference but every day I think of PathWay.  I’m wondering what else I can do because one night a week just doesn’t seem like that much.

Yes, I cried throughout speaking and even got choked up.  It was terrifying getting up in front of so many people and laying out my heart to encourage others to partner with PathWay.  Once I was done, it was like I could feel God patting me on the shoulder confirming I had done what I was supposed to and not so much for myself.  I did it with a heart of passion for a ministry where God continues to work but God is using that ministry to help heal my broken heart and part of that healing is moving forward.  #movingforward

Been There, Done That, Loved It!

Yes, I'm sure we can all say that at some point in our lives about a particular situation or mine is been there, done that, and got a t-shirt.

Well this is specifically related to Proverbs 31 Ministries Online Bible Studies or P31 OBS, for short. I just recently completed a study with the book What Happens When Women Say Yes to God. I was a little unsure because of my time commitment having two children, both under 2 at the time, working on the drama team with my husband, working full-time, and all of life's duties.

God helped me get up early, stay committed, and complete the study. Saying I loved it is not a big enough statement. During this study, I received direction for a volunteer opportunity I was considering, saw a direct miracle of God's protective hand on our 3 month old son and saw God move in a specific ministry I'm involved in at church.

These are just snippets of all I learned, read, absorbed, and saw since beginning that study. I'm not saying your experience will be the same. However, if you won't know until you try it. Please consider joining an OBS and see more information here. The next one is starting this weekend and I cannot wait to see what God has in store for me to learn.