How is God using your today to prepare and purpose your tomorrow?

Today’s guest post is written by Brook Hickle…

There I was, just 5 years old, a little blonde-haired, always-smiling girl, swinging across the monkey bars…about to learn one of the greatest lessons of my life.

Just a short time before, I had wandered away from watching an afternoon soccer game.  Soon, I was joined by a little boy who seemed to have more interest in picking on me that anything else.  It wasn’t long before he called me a name so dreadful to my young ears that it still rings  in my head today.

“STUPID!”

I repeated it to my mom between sobs and tears as soon as I returned home that night.

For many kids, being called “stupid” wouldn’t cause them to skip a beat.  For me, an only child (at the time) and a fairly well sheltered one at that, the word was crushing.  My mom did her best to talk me out of devastation, but to no avail.  Time passed, and life went on, but the playground scene at the soccer field that day remained a vivid memory–and still does.

Twenty three years later, I began directing children’s ministries at my small church. Whenever the topic of kindness would come up, I’d share my experience of being called “stupid. ” It seemed to resonate with kids pretty well as an example of how we should treat and speak to others. Fast forward another five years to when I became a consultant for children’s ministry, and I once again told the story.  This time as an example to other children’s workers of the kind of real life events that can change kids’ lives.

As I’ve retold that simple story to hundreds of people, I look back over the years and clearly see how God used that one moment in my life…one that might have been insignificant to other children on the playground that day…to help shape my heart and prepare me for what He had in mind for my future. God knew how that word would affect me; He knew that it would impact how, as a child, I treated other children; He knew that kindness would become a great focus when raising my own children; and He knew that many people would hear how a single word could be so crushing to a child.

I’m so thankful that God turned my painful experience of the past into something beautiful that helps others. And I believe He is eager to do the same for all of us … as He uses the unexpected events of today to prepare and purpose us for tomorrow.

How is God using your today to prepare and purpose your tomorrow?

Brook is a children’s ministry director in Enumclaw, WA, where she and her husband and their 3 sons live on a small Red Angus cattle ranch.  She blogs sporadically at www.brookhickle.blogspot.com when she’s not busy hiking, running, skiing, or chasing down escaped cattle.

(The current Preparation series is intended to help you look for, notice, and acknowledge God working in your life. At the end of the month, I’ll give away a free ticket to the Living Proof Live with Beth Moore event in Springfield, IL, October 25-26, 2013. All you have to do to qualify for the free ticket drawing is to comment on one or more blog posts throughout the month of March. The ticket will be given away on April 1st (and it’s not an April Fools joke!). (If you live too far away to attend the event, I have an alternate giveaway and will then pass along the ticket to someone else.)