I first felt my call to ministry in 6th grade
during a Beth Moore bible study. During praise and worship before the bible
study began I heard the word “teacher” in a loud and clear voice. For the next
few years I tried to understand what kind of teacher God wanted me to be. I
went back and forth between a college professor, elementary school teacher, or
high school teacher. Then when I was fourteen I was sitting with my mother and
she gave me a “Spiritual Gifts” test. Afterwards we were looking at the results
and I had tested high in missions, teaching, and several other categories. My
mother asked me what I thought this meant, I told her I wasn’t sure. She then
asked if I had ever considered being a pastor. I said “who, me? I’m a girl!” My
mom looked at me and said “So? Women can be ministers too!” I had grown up
going to Baptist and Assemblies of God churches, so the idea of a woman being a
pastor completely threw me. I told her I would pray about it.
Later
that month my mom came to me and told me she had talked to our Pastor, Reverend
Roger T. at a Sunday school Christmas party. She said he had approached
her and told her he had a dream about our family, he thought he was supposed to
get closer to our family and that it had something to do with me. He asked her
if I had ever thought about going into the ministry. She told him that I had
just recently began to think about it but that I hadn’t said anything to her
about it since the night of the spiritual gifts test.
When
my mother told me about this conversation I became overcome with sobs. I
couldn’t manage to say anything, only lift up a finger to her to signal her to
wait until I could speak. We sat there for almost five minutes before I could
speak. I finally calmed down and was able to tell her why I was so emotional. I
told her how that night of the spiritual gifts test I had gone into my room and
prayed that if the Lord wanted me to be a minister that He would have someone
in authority over me recognize that call on my life. This amazing answer to my
prayer made it very clear to me that this was what God wanted me to do with my
life.
The
next few weeks I became a little skeptical on this plan for my life. I prayed
to God again and asked Him that if ordained ministry was the plan for my life,
if He wanted me to preach and to be in a church that He would give me an opportunity
to live this out. A chance to practice this and make sure this was what I was
supposed to do. The next day Pastor Roger called me and asked me to do a dual
sermon with him in church, the date of our sermon was to be my parents and
grandparents wedding anniversary.
All
of this occurred when I was fourteen years old, four years ago. Since then I
have been jumping at any chance to serve, at my local church, in the district,
in the conference, in any way possible. God has given me so many opportunities
to serve and reaffirm my call. Every time I have been unsure about God’s plan
for my life He has reaffirmed it and shown me how wonderful His plan is. I am
so excited and feel so blessed to be able to serve Him in this way.
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