I have this two-way thought wave about – Women in Ministry
Women in Ministry being-: the “work of a minister of religion” as in comparison to, or actually
2. Women who Minister: - being “to tend to the wants and needs of others”
Yes, I am a Minister of our church with my husband, (not Pastors Wife, but a Pastor in my own right), but I don’t ‘minister’ because of my title, I got the title because I ministered.
To be a Woman who Ministers is way more powerful, than having a title of a Women in Ministry, and its one for all of us, for we have been called, in our everyday lives and how we go about our day to day, empowered in the calling that God has given to us all to Go Make…. And how He has specially defined a task for each of us matching with it our giftings and talents, that enable us to do what we do for him, 1 Peter 4 :10-11 NLT - 10 God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. 11 Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.
Walking in that scripture enables us to stand in the doing, and I tell you its from that place that you can draw the needed strength in your everyday, to do what you do and to do it well.
I’m sure you don’t think this way, but There has seemed to be this unspoken thing – the Concept or Perception, that if you were “In Ministry” you “Made It” you were “Special - Important” Ha-ha sorry, what a joke, to be in ministry is about hard work and perseverance. It’s about listening to everyone’s, either problem’s, ideas, better ways, and theological gibberish and all usually without a right to reply, as we don’t have the affordability of saying what we think and nor the opportunity to clarify or justify our actions.
Hang on – let’s start back a little – here’s a quick overview of me.
I have journeyed with God for over 41 years, surrendering my unknowledgeable broken self to God at the age of 19, (19 how broken can you be at 19 you night ask), my reply is , that most, well all of us, have a story, a journey we have walked, before we came face to face with the opportunity for our lives to change and to be continually changed thereafter.
I was brought up in a great family with me, being the eldest girl amongst 4 siblings (boy, girl, boy, girl), I actually thought that our family was normal, and, in the sense, we were, to those outside, but we also had to juggle the fact that Dad drank too much and Mum joined him, we were often left alone to fend for ourselves and there never seemed to be enough money. I wasn't accepted in amongst my peers, so I worked hard at trying to fit in, I tried to apply myself to schoolwork, without support from home and having attended about 6 primary schools probably didn’t help much, as we moved regularly.
I tried to apply myself with sports and again without too much encouragement from home because I had to get to practises and to the games and everything by myself because my parents weren't available or possibly incapable of driving at that time. With all of this, I wouldn't say that in my life, I thought that was hard done by, like Dad used to get a bit verbal in his drunkenness and I suppose emotionally we were restrained but somewhere besides it all, I knew both Mum and Dad loved us very much and they tried to love us from their own brokenness and perception of what a family looked like.
Hindsight and amazing thing, I learned a lot from looking back, I learned a lot from them some of it was how to not raise your children, some of it was to how not to live your life, but hey, I became them, at the young age of 14. I had enough, I was sick of always having to be the one to look after my younger brother and sister and always having to be home and to cook meals and to make sure that everything was OK. I took on the role of being ‘The Mum’, being the nurture, and being the one that we were safe, and everything was OK.
So at the age of 14, I began to flex my muscles and my thoughts were, you had the kids look after them yourself and with this attitude began to mix in with the wrong crowd and started drinking and partying and yeah I know at 14!!, what!, what were you doing at the age of 14, you should've been home, and I so should've been and could have been if my family life was a little bit different, but it wasn't.
So I worked with what I had amazingly, God, the one, we read about in Jeremiah 29: who knew us before we were formed in out Mothers womb, and ordained our days before we took our first breath, and watches over us, desiring for us to connect with him, so that we could have a fresh new life. God bought along a young man, when I was 15 , who was probably more broken than me, well I shouldn't say that, he was As, broken as I was and had his own life's journey and life's issues to face, as I said I was 15 and I had so much love to give and I told him that I loved him pretty early on in the peace, which could possibly freak others out, but I honestly think you know looking back, well I know looking back, it was a God moment, I had no idea, I didn't even know what or who God was, you know my concept of church was that Mum and Dad had Sunday school on Sundays and what that was, is all of their friends coming around and they would just have drinks and barbecue or whatever was going down on the day and depending on who's house it was, us kids would just run wild, running around the property, having fun being kids you know, so we didn't think anything of it, the parents were normally under the influence most of the time and sometimes their wasn't enough food, our clothes didn't fit, they were mostly hand me downs, but we had a good time, we had fun, we had laughter, we had each other, and we had a roof over our heads, we were never homeless, we just had absent parents both physically and sometimes emotionally.
The biggest THING, which I am SO thankful for is that this guy, this guy that I met and thought I'd fallen in love with, he had an encounter with God when he was younger something that he held in his heart, he lived like the devil and acted up, but God had touched him somewhere along the line, and it was something that he didn't forget.
So after about five years dating he said how about we go to church, I was like sure, I've got no idea what to expect, but sure, so we went along and there were, these people and they were happy and they were accepting and they actually seemed to care and from that time, from that Sunday in early January 1980, we continued to go and on the morning of Sunday the 3rd of February in 1980 after hearing the message that the Pastor spoke, my heart was racing, I just wanted to cry and then he, the Pastor, gave opportunity that if anything that was mentioned in his message, touched our hearts, too talk to somebody about it and for them to have the opportunity to pray and I tapped on the shoulder of the lady sitting in front of me, who I had met a few times and through my sobbing voice, I said can you please pray for me, Right There, Right Then, I surrendered my broken heart to my God and saviour and I can say now at the age of 60, what a truly amazing and remarkable journey, I have navigated both the highs and lows, the tears and the frustrations, the choices of others not choices that I directly made, but was impacted by, but it’s those experiences, that made me who I am today.
In life’s journey you have to navigate, you have to come before God and you have to be Real and you have to Hold on to the fact that He, God loved you, Choose you, allowed His Son to die on the cross for you, and to not be one that seeks vengeance or one that seeks to justify, but one that would surrender your heart again to God, and ask him to be with you and strengthen you as you journey through your life, so we can get to come out the other side with at least bumps and bruises as you possibly can.
So you start the journey and you journey in the land of Church life, in the land of every Sunday, hearing some amazing messages, from people who are on their own journey before God, giving opportunity for prayer, you begin to learn and begin to understand some of the things that are spoken, and then, the wise person, actually starts to apply some of those things, those things that resonate in your heart as you hear them and then you ask God to make them real in your own life and you grow, you grow not only spiritually but knowledgeably about the things of God and the promises that He has for you and what do you do with that, do you just take it all on board and just be ?, or do you put it into action and there, in that Choice, lies the key between Women in Ministry or Women who Minister. I believe God has called us to be real, to be, Women who Minister to take our own personal experiences, and utilise them with Gods Presence and God’s Promises, as encourage others on their journey, so that we can be supportive and encouraging of those around about us.
I truly believe it’s the Choices we make and the Steps we then take, that are the things that will determine our future.
Action… is to put into practice that which we have been made aware of.
Back in 2016 I put up the following Facebook post
The Power of Choice
With every new day - we have opportunity - with every opportunity comes Choice, the decision to choose wisely
As it's the Choice that dictates the next step in our day - our life - and our future
So, what does our future hold....
It holds, a daily opportunity to make “Wise and Godly Choices” - realising whatever they are, impacts upon our next and Every step
This is still relevant to me today
So, with this thinking
What will you Choose for Your Today?
As for me and My house I choose the Lord.
God Bless.
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