There have been many things happening in the past months in my life that I simply am beyond understanding. One thing is perfectly clear: God is God and I am not. It is as simple as that. This weekend was another example of how God's ways are not our ways. Friday I was in the Tupelo Film Festival with one of my clients, Tracy Carnes, who is the author of Excess Baggage, and whose screenplay Understanding Polly has just won a screenplay contest and is headed to Hollywood for review as a movie. Exciting stuff in a world I am unfamiliar. We visited Tupelo downtown and met charming people at Reed's Bookstore and Tracy bought a pair of pink cowboy boots.....and the two of us had time together in person for just a few hours for the first time in 15 years, while we did the work creative strategist and authors do when at a film festival.
Friday night back in my town, we were setting up for Suzanne Crocker, author of Pig in a Taxi, to come to our church Saturday for our Women's Ministry Event. Setting up my tablescape as part of our luncheon for 100 Saturday was the agenda Friday night....Les and I simply were running an errand on Beltline Avenue that I was urgently asking Les to do at a time it simply didn't make sense to leave, but I had that "we have to go now feeling" when life changed. In front of us we saw a red truck hit from the rear by an older man in a Neon, it was a bad wreck, cars spun, the truck was bent sideways...and I asked Les to pull over to let me see about the man in the red truck, he wasn't getting out and the truck was hit badly, and much to my shock it was my dear friend David Cooper, America's Income Trainer who lives in Tennessee. I love David Cooper, you have to simply know that to make the story understandable, he has personally poured into my life and taught me skills that have made a difference in my life, helped me earn cars from Mary Kay, and ministered to me when i thought my life was ending after a divorce with two small children. He encouraged me to believe that God has a plan in that too. Les (God bless him for allowing his wife to lead him to do seemingly crazy things) did stop and we were with David for the police reports and then loaded him up in my jeep with his things and we worked to help David get to a speaking venue and to handle the details that go with having an undriveable truck after a wreck when you're far from home.
We had our event Saturday at church, and what a blessing it was! I so loved putting together a black polka dot and yellow tablescape for ten and the event was amazing. Kelly, a new friend from church, sang and did God annoint her for singing! Then Suzanne Crocker spoke of her experiences in West Africa. Her honest poignant experiences of her expectations and the realities of what God expected of her, were so meaningful as I am personally learning to trust God at this all new level in ministry. Yes, Suzanne, God does indeed expect us to follow where He leads, and in my case, places I never knew I wanted to go....and to use skills, only He could provide. His purpose for us is real and each one of us does have a ministry from God as the Bible tells us.
After cleanup and finish up, it was time to go check on David Cooper. Les and I drove him home to the Nashville area. God so blessed us with that time. David Cooper changes peoples lives as he teaches them how to be the professional sales trainer and man of integrity he is. His personal mentors are/were people such as Mark Victor Hanson, Cavett Roberts, Earl Nightingale, and Zig Ziglar. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale that great man of God, who called David the Ambassador of Encouragement. David has affected so many lives with the sharing of his love and skills, God uses him in powerful ways. Our evening taking him home was exciting and so encouraging as God heard my heart's cry of the last few weeks and produced David....whom I had not asked to help me with this ministry, yet I had cried out to God only last week to say "God, why can't you send David or someone to help me with this newest project you've given me, I don't know the where or how to's on how to do this filming you have before me here in Alabama....I just don't know how to do this at this level" and then there was David in my car. David may be a short bus boy too, he wouldn't have stopped TWO blocks from my home without the experience of having a wreck....what were the chances of it being ME who arrived on the scene....what was the likelihood that his busy schedule would allow an evening of sharing in the car the next day and an evening together with his lovely wife Susan in Nashville. God's ways are not my ways....and yet His provision is so amazing.
The beautiful thing about this life God is allowing me to live is it is not about me. God is allowing me front row seats in peoples's lives that truly affect others in such amazing ways . He has given me the gift of people like Rachel Anne Ridge and The Company Girls and her sister Katherine, of Raising Five that so encourage me in this walk....as Rachel teaches women everyday how to make home a sanctuary in simple understandable, fun lessons interlaced with God's promptings as He guides her. He has put Lori Kasbeer, a woman I greatly admire for her ability to help others find the good things through her Book Reviews and insights with me in Dallas for a weeklong gift of time with her.....He has allowed me to have the privilege of providing structure and support systems for ministries such as Thelma Wells, Ready to Win and Extraordinary Women speaker. He's introduced me to Karen Rabbitt, this amazing retired psychotherapist and author of Trading Fathers: Forgiving Dad Embracing God, whose memoirs on her childhood abuse has helped so many women gain awareness of understanding that they too can be healed of their pain. God has gifted me with people like David Cooper's friendship, men and women who are truly God's servants and people who so share God's love and healing with others. Friday morning I was on the phone with Sandy Ralya, Beautiful Womanhood's author and presentor. This week I had the privilege of understanding that God had a new plan for Allison Worthington's Blissfully Domestic...and I am truly blessed to know that team and now be part of God's revealing of the plan to Alli too. It is a breath taking thing God is doing and I sometimes wish He'd simply let me see the blueprint of what in the heck he's doing with this short bus girl from Alabama...but I am glad He's allowing me to come along on His ride....although it feels more like I'm holding on for dear life! It is kinda like the old Army comercial, "The hardest job you'll ever love"...that is this walk God has given me.
Let me give you an example of the kinds of things that are happening. God wakes me up at 4 a.m. and puts an absolute understanding in my simple little brain that I am to call a known person I have never met in my life, and be open to listening to their needs. Now, this isn't my comfort zone, I don't wake up and say "Oh gee, let me call a complete stranger, who happens to be famous in their world and explain that God said to call, and what can I do for you?" Most times I think "Where on your earth God am I to get this private number? and then He either makes it happen or connects me a different way" I always imagine they think "my gosh, another crazy got my number" Yet not only are they answering, they have then told me something that was needed and God every time has simply put me in a place of humbly saying "I can do that for you" and then it happens. It is the most breath taking life to life right now....and yet I am seeing God knit together this plan of His in ways I cannot understand do not comprehend....its just about doing the next thing He puts before me.
I wish it were that easy for me to obey each directive....but I usually worm around and suffer through the disobedience for a day or three first...and then I realize God wins and we go again.
God takes.my.breath.away.with his magnificience!
This morning I am completely unaware of exactly what God's doing in my life, but in my time with Him I came to realize once again the depth of God saying "I am with you and for you. When you decide on a course of action that is in line with MY will, nothing in heaven or earth can stop you" Romans 8:31 Psalms 46:1-3, Luke 1:37. All I know about my own life plans? That God has clearly said my purpose is to help minister to the ministers and become teacher to the teachers....to help rebuild families one.heart.at.a.time. It certainly didn't make sense over 15 years ago when He first told me it was my purpose...it surely wasn't possible from where I was then, yet God had a plan long before I had a belief in His whisperings for my life. Now many later God has gathered a team of amazing servants of Christ, isn't it interesting how God is allowing me to do just what he said, to minister to the ministers, to equip the teachers. Can't you see that God has brought in His team.....on marriage, on healing hearts, on financial equipping, on rebuilding home, on ministering to families, to rebuilding the church.....can you see...God DOES has a plan and its unfolding....and this short bus girl is overwhelmed with the joy of seeing God weave His magnificent tapestry right before my eyes. (If I can just hold them open long enough between blinking to see if this is real! and when I'm not very overwhelmed thinking I have to do this alone until God thwacks me again and says "Stop thinking so much and simply obey and do the next thing!")
Pinch me would you? God is God....and God sized work and God sized amazing dreams are coming true and I could not be more excited....the front row seats are amazing!
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