So in relation to my whining and frustration on my blog last week, Carolyn commented
“Do you REALLY belive that God has put something on your heart that he’s not big enoung to make happen?”
That got me thinking back to about 18 months ago when a very wise woman challenged me with these words:
“However big your thinking is, think bigger, because you can’t out-think God”
That wise woman was Joanna Thompson, the very same Joanna who I asked you guys to join me in prayer for earlier this summer. Joanna was (still is) basically one of my heroes, because she was a pioneer in showing God’s love, mercy, grace and compassion in action through the work of pregnancy crisis centres.
Joanna went to be with Jesus a few days after I got back from South Africa. There’s a memorial service for her in London this Wednesday (I really wanted to be there).
I wrote about how God had spoken to me after her challenge to us at the Scottish CareConfidential conference in May 2008 on my old blog. God spoke to me a lot that weekend about stepping out to do some public speaking in relation to work in pregnancy crisis support. I don’t know how she came across it, but she did. After reading Carolyn’s comment I went back to find what she had written to me.
“Don’t hide under your sleeping bag! Just keep your eyes on Jesus, as you are doing, remembering that you are his workmanship and that he already has prepared the works for you to do. When you do them you will just know that this is what you are made for.“
She was totally right. Six months later I was speaking with my friend Joy at the Christian Medical Fellowship conference.
God spoke to me more in South Africa about things for the future too. I have no idea if I got it right, or how it will ever happen. I guess I lack patience. I know I lack discipline.
I’ve also been asked recently if I’ll do more in the world of pregnancy crisis support. I don’t know exactly what this means yet, or what it will look like. It’s exciting and scary. I know God is in this, but I still sometimes feel very alone and very unsupported at times. I’m treading in unfamiliar, unchartered territory.
Also, a confession…though I did kinda know this ministry would eventually be part of my life very soon after becoming a Christian, in my head I didn’t think I’d be doing this as a single person. I always thought I’d be doing this together with or with the support of a husband.
But that wasn’t God’s plan for my life.
God knows what the future holds, and I only have a few clues from Him about what that might look like. I won’t really know until I get there.
In the meantime….keep on trying to love like Jesus.
