Confession

Hi all!  The title of today's blog post actually sounds much more sordid than it is.  However, while this isn't a dirty confession, it is a very serious one.

I have a secret...it's one very few people know, probably due to the issues I discussed in this blog.

Ready?

I've been "called," for lack of a better term.

This is really difficult for me.  Not because I feel God wants something specific from me.  God wants something specific for us all; we all have a calling.  I just feel like I'm being called toward some sort of public ministry.

No, this is difficult because of my totally unholy fear of what others think of me.  It's like I can hear a choir of voices yelling "Why would YOU be called?  What makes you think you're special?"

The short answers to those questions: No clue, and I don't.

I AM going to tell you my "getting called" story today though because I feel like it's going to become a huge part of my testimony in the future.

Wanna hear it?  Here it go. (I'll give a $5 Starbucks gift card to the first person who can tell me that reference LOL).

As you all know, I went to the Women of Faith conference in Washington, D.C. with my church last year.  Josiah and I had only been married a few months, but I was already a couple months pregnant, and leading up to the conference I'd experienced some pretty severe morning sickness.  For the conference, however, God gave me a reprieve.  I wasn't sick at all the whole weekend, although I was sick the day before I left and immediately upon returning.  He gave me that time to focus on Him...and I would need it.

On the second day of the conference...in the midst of Sandi Patty, I believe...I had the most overwhelming feeling I've ever experienced.  I felt God telling me something BIG would be expected of me at some point, like the women speaking at the conference...and I needed to get ready.

The feeling had...weight.  I don't know how else to describe it.  It was crushing.  It pushed on me from all sides.  I couldn't sing anymore.  I couldn't breathe.  I just sat down.

I've never felt more lonely in entire life.

I was with thousands of women, and yet, I was alone...with God.

You'd think it would be something phenomenal and I'd want to rejoice and SHOUT IT from the rooftops, but in grand biblical form, I shirked it.  I tried to get away from it.  I looked out at the crowd and wondered if anyone else was feeling that same feeling.  I wondered if I was just letting the experience and the music get to me.

I ran from it.

I thought if I could just get out of that environment for a moment, then it would go away and I could laugh at myself for being so hormonal and silly...so I went to the restroom.  If any of you have been to an amphitheater restroom, you know that's not somewhere you typically feel close to God...unless you're praying not to catch something.  Blech.

But God followed me into the restroom.

I know...I kind of just made God sound like a creeper, but He followed me.  The feeling followed me.

After sitting in the stall for a few moments trying to escape God like a middle school nerd hides from the class bully, I gave up and went to wash my hands, staring wild-eyed into the mirror, my hands gripping the sink.  Why me, and why now?

I still have no idea.

As God would have it (because I believe in Him, not luck), I had just read The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis to Ryan.  In it, Aslan gives Jill some very special instructions and he makes her repeat them over and over to him until she has them down because he knows as soon as she leaves his presence she'll start to forget.

And I couldn't get that out of my head.

I felt God telling me to remember that feeling.  Remember the weight pressing down on me because once I left his presence...once I stepped out into the sunlight and left this giant worship experience, the whole thing would feel like a dream, and unless I committed it to memory, I would forget it.

And He was insistent I not forget.

So, I did just that and, much as I suspected, once I stepped into the light of day, the weight gradually lifted.  I ate Chipotle and was distracted by our cacophonous exit from the labyrinth that is D.C.  How many women with GPS on their phones does it take to exit D.C.?  Three and a phone call, it seems.

We chatted and laughed, and I forced the whole thing to the back of my mind.  I didn't dare tell the women I was with.  I love them all, but I was still kind of new to many of them, and just to let you know...getting a calling from God makes you feel just a little like a loony.  Just sayin'.

After we reached our cars in the church parking lot, said our goodbyes, and I climbed into the solitude of my van for the drive to the house, God pounced me once again (and now I've made God sound like Tigger...but it's the truth).  By the time I pulled up to the house tears streamed down my face, and I ran inside to my husband's arms and sobbed.  Despite it being late, I told him the whole story, and luckily, instead of thinking his wife needed to head to the nuthouse, he affirmed my feeling 100%.  He told me he understood.  He told me he thought I was right.

And I felt a little less crazy.

In the weeks that followed I told a few people...a very mature Christian woman whom I greatly admire, the pastor, and a couple others.  They were very helpful and reassuring, all of them saying they understood and felt I was on the right track.  But that was it.  The major issue for me is that I had no clue what the calling meant.

Guess what?  I still don't!!

I don't know what He wants me to do.  I don't know what the next step is.

I pray about it every day...God's will for our lives...my life.

After all this prayer and consulting with Josiah, I can't help but feel like this blog is part of the plan...not necessarily the plan itself, but a start to it...a step, so to speak.

I feel like writing and speaking will be part of it...but I don't know how, when, or where.

I'm thinking when He's ready for me to know, He'll tell me.

Until then, I'll continue praying and waiting patiently.  If I've learned anything in the last few years it's that His timing is indeed perfect...

and anything He has in store for me is worth the wait.

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