Wholly Me

I wish it was prettier, and more polished. It’s just not. Me, and life in general. I was a small-town girl, living a big city life, being a pastor’s wife and ministering in a mega-church. Just when both my arms had embraced living in the 4th largest city in the country, and hard-fought battles in ministry were bearing fruit that we had never seen or experienced, God threw us a curve ball. He was calling us back to rural Oklahoma. We wrestled, we fought, we sobbed, we surrendered. The countless breadcrumbs and the whispering (it actually seemed like yelling at times!) that He gave us to lead us here were unmistakable. So here we are. Some days I embrace the work He is doing in me, and some days I stubbornly want to revolt. Months in, there are days of acceptance and joy, and there are days of discipline and frustration. But God’s clear and steady call was unmistakable and we trust Him.

I moved here with a random resume . . . oncology to school nursing, crisis pregnancy center to day surgery. I have cared for the haves and the have-nots. Now that expanded to home health in a rural community. Less “Chicago Med,” more “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.” I see poverty and cavernous need that I wish I didn’t know existed. But I submit to the learning and molding, as uncomfortable as it is.

God gave us two girls. I am not “blingy” or able to do a ballerina bun to save my life. Nonetheless, God has given me a heart for young women to know their infinate value to Christ, and call them to step into adventure with Him. God has cultivated a heart in me to mother my girls, their people, and nearly any teen I see in Walmart or walking to school on a weekday morning. 

God’s call on me continually threatens my anonymity. He beckons me come off out of hiding and off the sideline to share some of the holy moments I have the privilege to be witness to. Those have come from the front row seat I have to people’s highs and lows in ministry, or sometimes the porch of a student camp cabin well after curfew, or a clinic exam room. Now it sometimes looks like the living room of a farmhouse in nowhere Oklahoma, looking at pictures of great-grandkids with a lonely grandmother. Or maybe it’s at the kitchen table of a widower helping him sort out his medicines and encouraging him to eat regularly. The mess is everywhere, in every domain of life. But I also see the holy—the evidence of His glory and work in me and around me. If you have ever wondered why God chooses to use the failings and frailties of those in Scripture, I wonder the same thing. But then again, I also wonder why He doesn’t choose people who have it more together than me. He chooses me. He chooses you. This is the same pattern we see from Genesis to Revelation—broken people in need of a Savior, being invited into holy work in us and around us. And I am beyond grateful to be one of those.