Last Wednesday, our mailbox held a fun blessing--the ministry newsletter of my mentor and her husband, who is on staff at Kingdom Building Ministries. It was full of pictures of their three beautiful children, which brought me many smiles. (XinXin, whom they adopted from China in April 2004, is pictured here last summer.) And then it contained a message from Diane about what she's been learning lately as she stays home and cares for the kids (their newest daughter came home from China with them in July).
God used Diane yet again to speak so clearly to my heart! She and I are in such very different places in life, yet we are struggling through and learning some of the same things. She is home with three kids...I am just home...but she gave me a valuable reminder that this time will not be wasted if I will be obedient and seek God wholeheartedly during it. She's been studying The Beloved Disciple by Beth Moore, and here's an excerpt of what she shared that ministered to me so much:
One of the biggest things that ministered to me was a series of lessons in Beloved Disciple that culminated in a session titled, "Lessons from Obscurity." In a nutshell, we hear of Peter and Paul's ministries all through Acts, but really nothing about John's. Beth Moore put it this way: "Peter's ministry was skyrocketing. John? Christ simply asked him to take care of His mother." ...Yet, the next lessons revealed that God was using John's time in obscurity to purify him, draw him into one of the deepest love relationships we see in all of Scripture, and prepare him to receive the greatest Revelation about heaven known to man. Obscurity was not wasted!! Oh, how I needed to hear that. I may not be "out front" right now. ...But somehow just knowing that God is desiring to accomplish much in me if I will cooperate makes me want to do just that. I needed to be reminded that my pursuit is not to be of some ministry or even to some "calling" but a pursuit of Someone.
Me, too. God used this to confirm and broaden my perspective of some things He's been teaching me lately about this quiet season at home--in obscurity.
As if that weren't enough, I actually got to talk to Diane on Wednesday night! We hadn't talked on the phone since before the wedding, so it was a huge blessing to catch up with her. And as we talked, God continued to graciously remind me of all the ways He's been faithful to me and all the ways I've been ungrateful and have taken His grace for granted.
Furthermore, I realized that here I am complaining about feeling lonely and wanting friends here in Tennessee...but the truth is, if God never gave me another deep friendship with a godly woman, or if He never gave me a new mentor, He would still be beyond faithful to me. The fact that I have been blessed with not one but two awesome mentors...the fact that if I needed to talk to someone or needed some prayer and a shoulder to lean on besides Steve's, I could come up with a long list of women to call in a second...not to mention the parents and in-laws who support me...how dare I complain? How many people have these kinds of blessings? God has indeed been so good to me.
2 comments:
WOW! I haven't read your blog in a LONG time, and now that I have caught up, there are like a million things to say, but all I can think of is WOW! WOW! WOW! :-) SO when I am given more words than just wow, I'll be sure to fill you in. That is a lot to chew on!
It's wonderful to hear how God is speaking to you and what you're learning. What's so great to me is how He puts specific people into your life at just the right time to speak words of truth to us. He is faithful, you are right Miss Amy:) Love you girl.
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