Wildly Unpredictable

Grab a cup of coffee and make sure you have some time before you start reading this, because this one is long. I just thought I should warn you before you dive right in. So settle in and I pray the Lord will teach you something about what it means to really live for His glory! 

He is wildly unpredictable – Jennie Allen

It had only been a few months since I had my life turned upside down by God. My whole world had changed since I realized that it was all about the glory of God. I dived head first into serving in the student ministry I had just graduated from all of a few weeks before. But within a matter of just a few weeks it was like someone put me on a roller coaster I have yet to get off.

 I think back to that moment sitting on the front row at Big Stuf in June of 2005. It was right before Louie made the massive statement that would forever change my life. He was building to his big point by explaining God is on the move and we can chose to step in  and be apart of God’s story. It’s not about getting God in on our story but  about us getting in on what He is already doing; to get in on His story.

I think about that image of a rushing river. That God is moving forward, not back. He is on the move and we can chose to get in or not. I chose that week to get in and man as it ever been the ride. When I stop long enough to reflect back on that moment I realize that I stepped my foot in that river of God and my life has not stopped being one wild ride ever since.

I was sitting my bed thinking about this book, and thinking about the topic of this book. I began sensing the Lord wanted me to write a book back in November of 2011. It was during a D-Now (Disciple Now) at my church. It was during worship the final night as the band played the song, One Thing Remains by Jesus Culture.

Higher than the mountains that I face

Stronger than the power of the grace

Constant in the trial and the change

One thing remains

Your Love Never fails

It never gives up

It never runs out on me

Because on and on it goes

For overwhelms and satisfies my soul

And I never ever half to be afraid

One thing remains

Because one thing remains

Being called to write book about finding beauty in this season of waiting, was a call to write a book about God’s faithfulness. To write a book about how my whole life Jesus has been the One thing has always remained! Jesus! His love has never failed  me yet and it never will. Jesus has never given up on me. No matter what came my way, the lover of my soul pursued me relentlessly. 

There has been so much change in my life as with most people, but even in the midst of the change and pain at times that came my way Jesus stood by my side unwavering. It was just this call to be vulnerable and simply share what God has taught me; to share the moments since that day at Big Stuf camp that the Lord has used in my life. The lessons learned in the waiting room; lessons I wouldn’t have learned any other way.  To open the pages of  my journal and share with you my journey. My own personal journey of finding beauty in the waiting, because for a long time the last thing I saw waiting as was beautiful. It felt like a wilderness. But with the hand of my Savior to guide me, He has begun to point out the beauty to me.

Giving me a new prospective and with love and gentleness pointing out to me the beauty. The most beautiful part being that right now it is just Jesus and me.

It makes me think of Eve. How God made Adam fall into a deep sleep and a took a rib from him and from that rib he made a suitable helper and brought her to the man and the man said you are now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh you shall be called woman for you were taken out of man.

But it’s the word brought that has seemed to stand out me a lot more recently. Correct me if I am wrong but for something to be brought to someone or something it has to have not been there at some point. There was some kind of journey involved.

It’s the reminder that the first face Eve saw was not Adam’s, but God’s.  There was Eve and God before there was Adam, Eve and God ;the same thing with Adam.  He had a season (we don’t  know how long) that is was just him and God.  Right now it is just God and I on a journey together. If along that journey he brings me to a man, which I do believe he will, then it will happen on His time table, but right now its just Jesus and I walking through life and he is pointing and showing me all the beautiful things in this season.

But, it has been a journey! Louie was right in calling living for the glory of God and choosing to get in on what He is doing a rushing river. I remember within weeks of getting home from Florida the changes began; the roller-coaster started. The man who had been our youth pastor for 3 years was leaving. God was calling him somewhere else.

I remember thinking all of a week ago I told him I wanted to help teach Sunday school and now he was leaving. What is happening? Our once thriving student ministry went to hardly nothing with a few months of him leaving. 

Then in August 2005 I had just arrived home from a long day. It was Sunday and Sunday’s for anyone on staff at a church or in some kind of leadership know that Sunday’s are long and busy days! I had been at church pretty much all day other than that afternoon. I had gone to the movies with a friend after lunch before I had to be right back at Church.

When I arrived home I found my mom face down on our back porch. After calling 911 and  getting her to the hospital  we found out she had had a brain autism and that is was miracle she even made it to the hospital alive. My sister and I both sat in that waiting room and cried in pure shock!

I called my dad and he rushed over to the hospital to be with my sister and I. My parents are divorced and praise the Lord my dad didn’t live anymore than 40 minutes away. But that evening I am pretty sure he made that drive in more like 20 minutes. I just remember it not taking him very long to get there. I had never been so happy to see my dad in all my life.

Because my parent are divorced I was the only person who could legally sign some of the paperwork that was required. I have no idea what I was signing. My dad sat with me but he couldn't do anything other than that. So, at barely 19 years-old I grew up very quickly within 48 hours.

They rushed my mom to another hospital because the one she was at was full. They had her stable enough that they could transfer her. My dad took my sister and I home to get some things we were going to need for an over night stay in the hospital. Then he drove us to the hospital and stayed with us. He didn’t leave our side the entire time she was in the hospital.

But I remember the night we got there the doctor needing to have my permission to do brain surgery. He said there were two options that he could perform, but for brain surgery he needed my permission. I had 24 hrs to decide.  I went home that evening and laid facedown on my bed for the few minutes I had and prayed.  Simply asking God what I should do. I can count on one hand the times that God has seemed almost audible and this one of them. I felt the Lord say to me, “brain surgery.” So in faith I went back to the hospital and gave the Doctor the okay. He wanted to try the other procedure first but if that didn’t work they would go ahead with brain surgery since they had my permission. 

Surprise, surprise, but the doctor came back and said that it seemed brain surgery was going to be best option! Glory to God alone!!!

The surgery went fine, but the healing was going to take some time. Seeing my once brilliant mother who I hardly ever saw sick my entire life was now laying in a hospital bed hardly able to talk or walk. Let me just tell you, mom is currently the Vice President of Finance & Admin at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. During that time of the brain autism she was working on her Doctorate.  She graduated a year early from high school and was still valedictorian. She graduated from Medical School, Magna Cum Laude. The woman is smart and a hard-worker. So to see my mom just lying there I didn’t even know how to wrap my brain around it. My sister was about to start her freshman year of high school and me, my freshman year of college...and now this. What was were we going to do?

But I had surrender to live a life for the glory of God and stepped my foot in that river. With that came a passionate love for the Word of God. There was one passage that stood out to me the summer before my mom had the brain autism.

(Ps 18:2) The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

My dad asked me one day how I was handling all this? He was just so proud of me. I told him without hesitation, “Jesus is my rock!” There was no other explanation.

One day while visiting my mom I simply laid my hands on her and prayed this simple ,but come to find out, powerful prayer, “God, be God!”

The Doctor told us that it would be 16-18 months before she would be able to drive or go back to work. She would therapy she would have to attend and because of the brain surgery they also had to shave part of my mom’s hair as well. Because of where the autism was the doctor told us it was going to effect her personality they just didn’t know how, but that her personality would be some what different than we were use to.

My guy friend at the time had come up one day while my mom was in the hospital and just sat with me. It didn’t hurt that I also had a major crush on him at the time. But his mom had a brain tumor when he was little and had gone blind because of it so he understood in some way what I was facing or about to face. He was such a great friend through the whole thing and I knew God had put him in my life just for that season; to help me through it.

He was also one of the leaders in our student’s ministry. He and I had grown up in the student ministry together. He was our tech guy pretty much. Mr. Jack-of-all-trades. But he was also the first good Christian guy I ever liked. Not the kind that say they are but live like hell. He was the real deal. God used him in so many ways to show me what I wanted in my future husband one day.  But during everything with my mom he would take me to 7.22 (a Bible study at the time) and just different things to just get me out of the house and keep me doing things with friends. He would call and check up on me..etc. One day as I was giving him an update on my mom he said, “it’s just going to be a new normal now.”  He was right. Things were not going to be the way they were before. I was going to have a new normal.

By October of 2005 by mom was home, and by November she was driving and by December was back to work part time. You talk about a MIRACLE!!!! She still had a long way to go but God had done what only he could do in healing my mom.

As soon as that storm began to settle down, things with my guy friend began to change as well. Come to find out in December that he and all the guys who had been leaders in our students ministry were making the move to another church to help our old youth pastor. I was devastated. It felt like everything I ever know was being pulled out from under me in a matter of months.

But come January I got a call from my friend Jeremy who was one of the guys who had made the move and asked if I wanted to come and lead a small group for disciple now. I whole-heartily agreed. I was pumped to be back under my old youth pastor's teaching, even if it was only for a weekend. Little did I know that weekend would be the beginning of God steering my way through ministry.

Now, when Jeremy said small group I envision maybe 6 or 7 girls. Ummmm…not the case. I get there and find out I have ALL, yes ALL the middle school girls! And there were a lot of them! but I feel head over heels in love with this group of girls. Again, I was all of 19 years-old and handed a tone of responsibility in one weekend. But that happens when your old youth pastor is in charge—he knows what you can and cannot handle so I guess jay and the guys figured I could handle 15 or 20 middle school girls. Sure! Why not?

After that weekend I found myself missing those girls and missing that ministry team made of Jay my youth pastor and all those guys who I had grown up with. Things at my home church of, at that point almost 10 years, were not going to well and I decided to make the move to Piedmont Church where Jay and guys were. Jay immediately asked me to be the 9^th grade girls Sunday school teacher. I stepped in, having no idea what I was doing, and loved it. The experience I gained in my 8 months at Piedmont have helped so much over the years.

I learned so much, and really began to discover that I really have a love and passion for student ministry but even more so a love of ministering to girls. I had a mentor growing up who invested so much in me and I wanted to do the same for these girls. God’s timing is perfect but also funny at times.

It had been little over a year since my mom had her brain autism. I had told myself I would never go back to my old church. BTW: Never tell God you will never do something or that something will never happen. Just saying.

I had seriously been praying for my future husband for maybe a few years at this point. I had just turned 20 and the only Christian guy I had ever liked was not liking me back and to say I was devastated is the  understatement of the century.  I could not fathom being with anyone but him. He was, in my mind, the perfect guy. I compared every other guy to him. And so began the wrestling with God over why what I  thought was best wasn’t happening.

Like I said, God’s timing is funny sometimes. Around the fall of 2006 my mentor Melanie and her husband Jimmy followed God’s call to come back to Atlanta. Jimmy had been working as a youth pastor in South Carolina when they felt the call to come back. They didn’t know why but they knew that was what God was calling them to do. So they did. Eventually God made clear why. Jimmy stepped in at the youth pastor at the same church he and Melanie met years earlier, also happened to be the church I had just left 8 months before and said I would never go back.

But I began to since God calling me back there. When I saw Mel and Jimmy were going to be stepping in at student ministers I knew this is were I needed to be. God brought things full circle when Melanie and I  began leading a small group of middle school girls together. I was in middle school when Melanie started pouring into me, so it was such a sweet gift to be sitting next to her again but this time teaching along side her and learning from her.

She would soon become a vital part of helping me in the waiting. Helping me find beauty in all that had gone on just within the last year.

She and I sat over coffee one day in Starbucks, were all good and godly conversations take place, and she said something to me I will never forget. She looked at me and said, “I want you imagine your perfect guy. You got him in your head. Okay. Now if you can’t imagine anyone better than (insert guys name) and that is not who God has for you…then just imagine who he does. Ephesians 3:20 says that God’s imagination runs wild for you.”

Ephesians 3:20 became a verse that would come to mean more and more to me over the years. Not just in waiting on the man God has for me, but in life. That my God’s imagination runs wild for me. I just needed to trust him & the plans he had for me life.

I never would have thought that surrendering to live for God’s glory would come at such a price. I didn’t think that choosing to wait was going to bring so much pain. I didn’t know it was going to cost so much.But there is a real Enemy who hates the glory of God. The moment I said, “Yes!” I also put a big target on my back. The moment I stepped into that rushing river of God’s story with that also came sharp rocks and big waves. The moment I strapped in that roller-coaster it took off and I hardly had time to catch my breathe before the first drop. 

But….

I wouldn’t trade it for the world. For the next three years I served with Melanie and Jimmy at KFBC (Kennesaw First Baptist). My home church for all of 13 years. I learned so many lessons. I cried a few more tears, got my heartbroken a few more times. I poured into girls, learned the good and ugly sides of ministry. I also learned to embrace this beautiful season of waiting. 

I echo Elisabeth Elliott’s question, “Must the vision cost so much?”

The answer is, yes! But it is worth it. I will leave you with something Jennie Allen says in her book Anything. It’s one of my favorite books, and I am currently reading it for the third time. Each time the Lord teaches me and shows me something new. But I will leave you with these words:

"By its very definition abandonment is unreservedly costly. Are we truly willing to completely and finally forsake this life? To yield ourselves to God without restraint? If anything has "buts," it wouldn't be anything. When we look at the God of the universe, who willingly sent his son to be brutally murdered so that we get to live in his kingdom forever as his own kids...saying that you will do anything "but" just doesn't go over very well.  We live in a culture that suggests that we deserve certain things—of course, we can’t totally help it, since we were all born here and hardly know any other way. But as believers in a heaven and a God who gave up his son for us, we know there is another way, a ridiculous desertions of our plans and of the rights we think we are owed.

It feels impossible that the hard things God has put in our lives are really just “light momentary afflictions [that] is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” ( 2 Cor 4:17). The only thing that could get us through, the only thing could give us perspective, is to “look not to the things that are seen but the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient,  but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (v.18)

God is an anchor in the midst of the difficult chaos of this world. The chaos will be resolved, It will. As Oswald Chambers said, “Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time.”