Sacred Circumstances
Circumstances can be just as sacred as a
worship service when the Holy Spirit is in them…there is no such thing as a
coincidence with God.” Priscilla Shirer
My heart was racing. I had no idea what to
expect. I could not have been more out of my comfort zone than I was in that
moment. It was my first time attending the Passion Conference. I had been
wanting to attend for years, and finally was able to go. I didn’t really know
how the whole thing worked, but I was excited. Now, I knew what passion was I just had never gone and so therefore
didn’t know all the in’s and out of passion.
As my friends and I stood in massively long line waiting to register I
looked at both of them and said, “Have you ever thought that maybe
your future husband is here?” They both looked at me like I was weirdest thing they'd ever met.
“I don’t mean like you’ll meet him, just that one day when you do meet him
maybe you’ll come to find out you were both here at the same time.” They seemed
to think that was more of a possibility than actually meeting their future
spouse.
When we finally got to the front of the registration line we received
our packets with everything we would need for that weekend. One of the things
that was in that packet and was of utmost importance was your wristband. That
wristband would tell you were you’re community groups were.
Community groups? What were those? I noticed that Jacinta, Christy and I
all had different wristbands. I then looked at the map that would then tell us
were our community groups were going to be. I still didn’t quite know what
those were but I noticed that my color meant I was not just going to a
different part of the building than my friends but that I was going to a
different building all together. I was going to have to walk to the OMNI
hotel...ALL BY MYSELF! My heart sank.
Now, by nature I am very much an introvert. I have to make myself me
more of an extravert at times, so the thought of having to go by self not only
across the Gwinnett Arena, but outside and basically across the street by
myself could not be putting me more out of my comfort zone. It was through this
that God would bring someone into my life that I was not expecting.
Why is me doing something like this and it being out of my comfort zone
such a big deal? I have to back up some and explain to you what God was
teaching me during this season of my life.
The year was 2008. I had just graduated from Cosmetology school in the
summer of 2007 and I couldn’t find a job that really paid what I need to be paid
as a hair dresser do I applied for a position in the children’s ministry at my
church; and I got it. It came in real handy for my youth pastor because if he
needed something done for the student ministry I was confidently already at the
church and when I wasn’t working in the children’s ministry I could help him or
his wife Melanie; who was also on staff as the girls minister.
I absolutely loved my job, and in the mornings my favorite thing to do
was get to work about 30 minutes early and go into the classroom where I was
teaching preschool during the week and have my quite time. I had bought the
book “Lady in Waiting” by Jackie Kendall. From the first chapter I couldn’t put
the thing down. The Lord began to do such a work in my heart and life through
this book. But there was one chapter that stood out among the rest and it was
the chapter titled, “Lady of Diligence.”
In the book Jackie said something that leaped off those pages on into my
heart; this is what she said,
The
perfect time to make the most of every opportunity is while you are single.
Every believer should use time wisely, as Ephesians 5:15-17 (NIV) says, “Be
careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every
opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but
understand what the Lord’s will is.”
John
Fisher wrote this:
“God
has called me to live now. He wants me to realize my full potential as a man
right now, to be thankful about where I am, and to enjoy it to the fullest, I
have a strange feeling that the single person who is always wishing he were
married will probably get married discover all that is involved, and wish he
were single again! He will ask himself, ‘Why didn’t I use that time for the
Lord when I didn’t have so many other obligations? Why didn’t I give myself
totally to Him when I was single?”
The
single woman can be involved in the Lord’s work on a level that a married woman
cannot because of the distractions and responsibilities of being a wife and
mother. Ironically, some single women can be so distressed by their single
state that they become emotionally more distracted than a wife and mother of
four children.
Rather
than staying home worrying about another “dateless” Saturday night, realize how
much valuable time has been entrusted to you at this point in your life. Rather
than resent your many single hours, embrace them as a gift from God—a package
that contains opportunities to serve Him that are limited only by your own
self-pity and lack of obedience.
I remember reading that and sensing the Lord say, “I am not going to
just drop a husband in your lap. You need to get out there and start living and
serving me. Using all this time I have given you. Make the most of this season
because before you know it, you will turn around and it will be gone. You’re
not going to meet the man I have for you living in your comfort zone.”
It was in that moment that I realized I had been playing it safe. Just
expecting God to “bring” some guy into my life. That life only started when I
met “the one.” You know in the movie Tangled
when Rapunzel is locked in a tower and each day she keeps herself busy just,
“wondering when will her life begin?” She was always sitting around waiting on
life to start, and so many girls, and myself included in that for a time, thats how they treat singleness. A season or "waiting for my life to begin." Life doesn't start when you get married. It's may simply be one of the many things God uses in your life to helps make you more like His Son, Jesus. It's not meant to be seen as some goal to attain, but rather a gift from God entrusted to you.
I had been doing that. Granted I was only 21 at the time but I had an
attitude of that of a girl who was just “waiting on life to begin.” I’ll keep
busy but really all I want to do is get married, and so I’ll just sit hear and
twiddle my thumbs and “wait on the Lord.”
When in reality what God was saying to me was, “waiting on me is an
active thing!”
It wasn’t long after that when I dove head first into serving the body
of Christ in anyway I could. NO to find a husband, but because God showed me the value in this season, and I needed to make the most of it. Weather that be through teaching, serving,
volunteering, missions, encouraging others, attending a new Bible Study, or
starting a small group. I wanted to do anything and everything I could. That around the same time the visual of two people running the same direction or race at the same pace an meeting along the journey, came to mind.
My mentor Melanie use to always talk about how before she got married
she always had this visual of two people running and looking up. Keeping their eyes of God. Because they are looking up they don’t see anything or anyone else
around them. They may look down from time to time but for the most part they
kept the eyes straight up, and then one day they collide into someone who was
doing the same thing. Because they both had their eyes on Jesus they ran into
each other.
I always liked her idea, but I always had this imagine of two people
running a race. They are running side-by-side and all they have to do is look
over and they see someone running at the same pace and same direction as they
are. That was what I wanted…a guy running as hard if not harder after Jesus
than me. So much so that God would have to be the one to knock him upside the head
to see me as anything more than a friend. I wanted a guy who was so in love
with Jesus that unless it was best for him to see me as more than a friend or sister
in Christ no matter how hard I tried…he wouldn’t. It's a guy reaching over and saying, “this is the direction I feel
God is taking me, will you join me.” He may not say it just like that but you
get the general idea.
But I remember the first time I heard a song that so perfectly painted a
picture of what I wanted and desired. I was sitting in a movie theatre with
some friends seeing the movie “Fireproof.” There was a song that they played during
the movie that brought me to tears because it put words to what I had been praying and what I hoped I
was using this single season for. It was the song, “While I’m Waiting” by John
Walter.
The chorus says this, “While I’m
waiting I will serve you, While I’m waiting I will worship, While I’m waiting I
will not faint, I’ll be running the race, even while I wait.”
The words to that song perfectly said what I hoped would describe my
single season one day and the man I would marry. That even though It wasn’t always easy, by God’s grace
and strength, I was able to persevere and wait on him.
So that leads us back to why I was so nervous walking down those stairs
to the ballroom at the OMNI hotel in Atlanta, Georgia at Passion 2010. At this
point the last 2 years had been rough at times, but I was having such a blast
trying to make the most of every opportunity to serve the Lord or simply grow
in my relationship with him, “I will serve you, I will worship…while I wait.”
That was part of the reason I even went to Passion that year, I wanted to go worship and I had the opportunity to go, so I took it and was going to make
the most of it.
What came next I was not prepared for.
For an introvert like me, It was all I could do to not just run out of
the room. I was going to have to do what??? Open to people I don’t know??? You
have got to be kidding me??
If you’re wondering I did stay, but I was defiantly nervous. We were
asked to go around the circle introduce ourselves, were we went to school, and
anything we wanted our group to know. So we all went around and said our names
and schools…etc.
There was this one guy in my group however that stood out. You’re
probably thinking I’m going to say he was cute, right? Nope! Wrong. He stood
out for a few reasons; number one: he was wearing a purple T-shirt with some
kind of monster looking thing on it. Which he called “the purple people eater.”
Number two: when he said he was 25 I thought, man he’s old. He doesn’t look
that old.” Granted I was only 23 it wasn’t like he was that much older than me.
Then three: he had this head full of curl blonde hair under a hat. But he did
have a nice smile.
After we all went around and did our introductions and talked about a
few other things we were dismissed. As we all stood I told everyone buy and
this blonde haired dude with a purple monster on his shirt came over and gave
me a big ole’ huge. I was so caught off guard. My first thought was, “oh no!
I’m going to have to be careful. He maybe on of those guys that think just
because I’m nice to him means I like him! Ugh, oh I hope not. Cause that’s
soooo not going to happen.”
Afterwards I went and found my best friend and told her about, “the
hugger.” We both just laughed about it. But as the week went on he began to
grow on me. I still thought he was still kind of weird to me, but he was sweet
and easy to talk to. When we would all go around and talk about all the Lord
was teaching us when it got around to him I could not get enough of hearing him
share all the Lord was teaching him; he basically would start preaching, and
we’d all just let him.
Our “designated leader” Alex asked him one day, after he realized he had
been talking for awhile, “do you want to be a preacher?” He just smiled and
shrugged his shoulders and said, “I don’t know! I’m in Bible school right now,
but I don’t know what I want to do after that.” We all nodded our heads as if
to say, “you are in the right place being at Bible school”
After one community group meeting I told my best friend as we were
walking, “you remember that guy I told you about in my group…the one that
always hugs me. Well, I could listen to him talk about the Bible all day. Not
like that, but just that I really
enjoy listening to him talk about Scripture. He really has a gift.”
Little did I know that within the course of 2 ½ years I would go
from being weirded out my his hugs, to praying for one. I never thought I would
ever see this guy again, but God had other plans. I had no idea the many lives
that the Lord would touch simply because I chose to make the most of an opportunity (season). Learn to see this season as an opportunity instead of a some part in a movie you'd rather just skip. :)
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