A Giant Leap

God has been working in my life recently. And by recently I mean he's always been working in my life, just lately it seems more evident? As in, stuff is happening right now. Like, I'm stepping wildly out of my comfort zone and taking a large step of faith.

My friend Joel talked to me about how he felt that God was leading him and his wife to help plant a church in Pullman, which is like 8 miles away from Moscow where we both go to school. When I first heard him talk about it, I was inspired. I have been wanting to get involved with a church, not just attend one but really get on the inside and lead something and know people and do things. But instead of acting on that immediately I waited a little while to learn more about what they were doing and see if it really was something that I wanted to get involved in. I'm moving away in June and I was wondering if this was really the right step for me?

Joel was asked to paint a mural for the church and being that we are both art majors he asked if I would help him. Being the good friend that I am I jumped on board, hoping that this also would allow me to get a little more information about what was going on. Painting commenced on the mural and before I knew what was happening I was going to Bible Study and Saturday night service.

I don't remember if it was a Thursday afternoon or not, but we were all gathered around the table of the Pastor's house talking about the church and things that still needed to happen while we are trying to get it up off the ground. It was brought up that what they really needed was someone to lead the children's ministry, so we were discussing things like curriculum and all the while I'm feeling like this is something I should be doing. I want to work with elementary schoolers. I am going to school to be a teacher. I was a day camp counselor at a church camp for two consecutive summers. This is totally something that I can do.

So I volunteered for the position.

I don't know exactly how this is going to play out. I've never been in this situation before. I don't know what all this entails. What if they misbehave? How should I react? What am I going to teach them? What if I can't keep them engaged? All these questions are swirling through my mind, but I feel like I'm in the right spot. The thought occurred to me tonight during our Saturday Night Fever church service that I don't have to have all of the answers, God can use me anyway. And I thought about Joel's tattoo of a section of verses in Isiah that essentially boils down to "Here I am Lord, use me."

And that's exactly what I plan to let Him do. I don't know what kinds of things He's going to bring me to, but if I just say yes to them and trust that this is where I'm supposed to be then my faith can only grow and I can do bigger and better things down the road. My life can only be made richer in the love of Christ and my faith sturdier.

This is a huge step for me, to lead a children's ministry. I feel young and under qualified, but God will make it work beautifully. I think about Moses leading the Hebrews out of Egypt and he didn't feel qualified for the job but God picked him anyway and awesome things happened because of it. Maybe I can be like Moses. I definitely want to try. I'm definitely excited about it. And I think I can only benefit from this experience.

Thank you Jesus for giving me this opportunity and these wonderful people with which to share my life. I only hope they don't get sick of spending all this time with me.