Now, getting to the reason for this post, my faith journey and call to ministry. Today I will be meeting with my District Superintendent to discuss declaring candidacy and to discuss my plans for the future. For this meeting I had to write a one page later describing my call to ministry and my journey living into that call so far. I realized that I had not yet posted on here about this particular subject so I thought it would be a great time to go ahead and post this! This is the exact letter that I will be giving to my DS today.
" 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. "
This letter is the basic story. No fluff or fillings. This story is the game changer of my life and to be honest I don't think it needs any fluff. I get to do the thing that makes me the happiest I have ever been and ever will be for the REST OF MY LIFE. How cool is that? I get so excited just thinking about it!!! I cannot explain how happy and how full my life has been ever since I chose to follow God's call on my life. God has given me SO many opportunities to serve and to further my realization of how AWESOME His plan for me is! It is far better than any plan I could have EVER written for myself. And to think, I almost didn't do it because I thought girls couldn't.
Lessons I have learned?
God doesn't call the "qualified" He qualifies the called.
Don't let anyone else give you a limitation, God didn't give you any, go where God leads you and trust in HIS plan for you.
The Will of God will not lead you where the Grace of God will not protect you. (My favorite quote, reminds me I have absolutely NO excuse to not do what God wants, He always has my back, and yours too!)
Love and Blessings,
K
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