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

Today’s guest post is written by Cathy Mathias…

Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4)

When I was 14 years old, I was positive about three things.

1. Jesus Christ was my savior, and I loved Him.
2. I wanted to be a wife.
3. I wanted to be a mother.

As a BUICK (Brought Up In Church Kid), I was saved at a young age, and therefore, I knew that the most important ingredient in my plan for those goals was a godly spouse. I had a very close relationship with Christ, and I desired to please him and serve him in any way he wanted me to, and I wanted my spouse to desire this as well.

Now, I knew God loved me immensely, and I knew of the powerful relationship we had via prayer. For two-and-a-half years, I prayed fervently, passionately, begging God for a godly husband, a good provider for my family, someone who loved Jesus, and who would lead our family and our church. I prayed so hard I would sob. I would lie on my floor and talk to Him out-loud. Yes, I was only 14, but a lot can happen as a teenager. I didn’t want to misinterpret his plan for my future, and that is what I was most afraid of.

I must have been quite irritating, because I was just 16 ½ when Adam came into my life. God cut right to it and gave me an answer to prayer. We got married a month after I graduated high school and will celebrate 20 years together this July.

After college for my RN degree, a full time job, and babies started coming, I began to feel as if I wasn’t doing enough for God. Adam is a CPA, and he became a partner in his accounting firm at a young age, and shortly after that he became one of the youngest Elders ever to serve at our church. He started on a small finance committee, and it didn’t take long for them to see that he has wonderful gifts of leadership and discernment. He is level-headed, calm, rational and, most importantly, he strives to make biblical decisions. I had prayed for YEARS for this to happen for him, yet there I was doing nothing. I became…unsettled.

“God”, I would pray, “you KNOW how much I love you, how much I want to serve you. Please let me!”

I did my time in the nursery since my kids were small, I taught Kindergarten Sunday School, and I helped out in very small ways here and there, but I never got fulfillment from what I did. I saw other mothers and wives juggling jobs, families, and tasks elegantly and skillfully. I, on the other hand, am a free-spirit space cadet who does well to remember to brush my own hair. I am a happy-go-lucky individual who is a dreamer, an artist, and completely UN-organized! Three young children, a full time (then later part time) job, a husband who worked long hours and had multiple board meetings and church meetings. WHERE on EARTH was my service to God? How could I possibly manage all of it? I felt like a single parent, especially during tax season.

I became depressed. I constantly compared myself to other women. Looking back, I know they weren’t and aren’t super women. Those women had different spiritual gifts than I did! They had different circumstances, different personalities, and God had different reasons for using them the way he did. But at the time, I didn’t see that. I only saw my failure to live up to my promise to serve God when I was just 14.

I prayed, and I cried. I prayed, and I read God’s word. All the time I was praying, I was asking for opportunities to serve. Above all of that, I prayed for my husband and his leadership in our church. I admired him. I knew God blessed him. I was proud of him. I wanted him to do whatever He could for God’s kingdom.

Then one evening, after an Elder’s meeting, Adam came through the door late. I was frazzled. I had put all the kids to bed, and was cleaning the kitchen.  He said to me,

“Dick (our pastor) thanked God for you in our prayer tonight.”

“What???” I chuckled. “Why on earth would he thank God for me? You’re joking right??”

“No”, He replied. “He really did.”

“But why?”

Adam took me by the shoulders, looked me in the eye, and said, “He specifically said that you have to deal with my job and my church duties. You are at home, being a wife and a mother, and by making sure that things are taken care of at home, that leaves me with less stress and worry, allowing me to serve God, and the church, fully.”

BAM!!!!!!!!!!!

Talk about light bulbs going on! I remember vividly, smacking myself on the forehead and thinking “DUH”!!! That night, it was like God said, “You ARE doing EXACTLY what you need to be doing for me now.” My soul became settled almost immediately, and I felt peace…and just a little bit silly. Just because I wasn’t directly involved did not mean I was unimportant, nor did it mean I wasn’t doing my duty as a child of God. By supporting my husband in prayer, encouraging him, supporting him, and raising my kids to love Jesus, I WAS doing God’s will!

My prayer for serving God changed after that night. Now, I tell God that I’m ready when He is. I’m waiting. Sometimes waiting is rough, but I rest in the knowledge that

1. He knows how much I love Him, and
2. He knows I’m on the lookout for His next assignment.

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

(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.)