A Work in Progress

On the second Sunday of each month, Jubilee Church has a church service in the prison, and last Sunday, Nov 11, I spoke there. As of Wednesday, I was feeling unworthy and not at all ready to speak. I was quite tempted to call or email Stephanie, who heads up this ministry, and ask if she could speak. This may sound strange, but I really felt like God wanted me to speak.

On Thursday, I sat down to begin to prepare something. Okay… I’m normally not this bad when it comes to preparing for things like this, but I was procrastinating on this one. So… back to Thursday… I began to sense that I was simply supposed to share about some of the stuff that God has been doing in me this year. Wow. It’s much easier to get up and just talk about something scriptural… but when it comes to your own issues, it is much harder to talk about. So, I told God that was fine if that is what He wanted me to do, but then didn’t prepare anything – I got up and began doing something else.

On Friday mornings, I am a part of a women’s prayer group. I told the gals where I was with the situation, but did not mention that I felt I was supposed to talk about my own situation. I told them that I was feeling quite small and unworthy to do this. They prayed with me and one of the girls (Cath) had two words for me.

The first was that she felt like God wanted me to speak on what He has done in me this year.

The second was a picture from a book that she has read to the young boy that she nannies for. In the beginning of the book, there are ten tall trees. One by one, they are chopped down, and all that is left at the end is a small acorn. The word went on a bit more, but this is all I am going to share for the purpose of this story.

Cath, felt like I came to South Africa kind of with or as ten tall trees. God has been chopping them down one at a time. They could represent a number of things – unbelief, things in my life that He wanted to cut out, things in my character that He didn’t want there any more, lies that I had believed, etc. And now, I am going home as this small acorn. Hence, why I feel SO small!!

On Friday afternoon, I sat down to begin working on my talk again, and I began to think about this word from Cath and what these ten tall trees may be. I came up with seven quite quickly… several lies that I had believed, an addiction that I had been struggling with, learning how to be a Mary in this world and the importance of that… and several others.

My talk went quite well on Sunday – God allowed His strength and power and presence to flow through me. He led me and gave me the strength that I didn’t have in myself to share these things. In being a small acorn and not feeling like I have much of myself, it allows God to do work through me so much more… without these random trees getting in the way. Am I perfect now? ABSOLUTELY NOT! I am a work in progress.

Phillipians 1:6 says : “… be confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

He will continue to perfect me until the day that I meet Him. Hallelujah!!

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My mom is coming to see me tomorrow! I am so excited. She should be getting on a flight from St. Louis in about two hours. We will have two weeks here together and then get a few days in Paris. I am so looking forward to seeing her, spending time with her and catching up! We will arrive in St. Louis on Saturday, December 1st in the evening and my very pregnant sister and brother-in-law are picking us up from the airport. I can’t wait to see her all pregnant… I can hardly stand it! I will be at Christian Fellowship on Sunday, December 2nd… probably will be quite jetlagged and quite out of it… but I will be there!

Thank you for all of your amazing support and encouragement this year. I can’t wait to see many of you and catch up in just a couple of weeks!!

As for my SA friends, in case any of you read this, I will miss you and will hope to see you before too long!!! You have been an amazing support to me this year and have truly been my family. Oh how I will miss Jubilee!!!