If you are finding yourself getting frustrated three sentences in, then maybe you should skip this post. As I want to be honest, but I also do not want to cause anyone to stumble. This isn't a salvation issue, so please forgive me if I have offended you and feel free skip over this one. :)
I've always been in ministries that operate in the spiritual gifts. Prophesy, speaking in tongues and the like. I've received several prophesies and seen many come to fruition and still hold the others in the expectation of God's promise.
When I was fourteen, I was a rising leader in the youth group and was being mentored by the youth minister of the time (who has recently become my senior pastor *praise God!*). One October 31st, we went to a church that we weren't all that familiar with, but that the ministers had started to connect with. They held a youth rally and had guest speakers and ministers on the program. At the end of the rally, they called an altar call. I can't honestly tell you what it was for, but I'm sure that it had to do with committing for real to a walk for Christ, because almost everyone in the room was pressing forward. There had to be close to a hundred teens there. I didn't know the speaker. In fact, I hadn't seen him before and I hadn't seen him since.
He pointed and looked directly at me and called me forward. Then he started sharing a heavenly message that didn't make sense until a few years later. He told me that God had called me to counsel teen mothers. I was not sexually active, I was really seeking God and trying to find grounding to be a true disciple. I welcomed this message, as I was already on the path to counselling. Being one of "wisdom beyond her years," having a home life that required that I matured rather quickly, and always being someone that lead had put me in many situations where peers sought my counsel. To be honest, I parented my parents, so I guess adults included looked for my counsel. *Now this counsel wasn't always as developed as it should have been and there has been a price I've paid, especially in my family for the me-counselling vs. the Godly-counselling*
Fast forward three years. I was now a prominent member of the youth. I was teaching classes and being sought out for all types of things. I had parents tell me that they wished their child would be more like me. I had my own mom make comparisons of me and my cousins, as if she was winning the competition. Each time I cringed, knowing how damaging it was the the children being spoken to about me as well as the height of the pedestal that I was being placed on.
I was dating a boy at that time that was not saved. We had been friends and our curiosities and lusts got the better of us. I ended up having sex with him one time to try and take back control. Not that it was right or makes anything less damaging, but I broke up with him immediately after, overwhelmed with the guilt of the sin that I found myself in. I never told anyone, but I repented and repented and repented. Six weeks later, I found out that I was pregnant. As scary as it was, there was a solidness about everything. I never felt out of control or lost. From the moment I started walking the path of my pregnancy, I never felt alone or abandoned.
I love how God makes provision! Not that my pregnancy was a provision for the calling, but that the calling was a provision to help me allow myself back into His mercy and grace.
I've been a single-mom for almost 11 years and have testimony after testimony of how God has blessed this situation. I have yet to find a consistent way to work with teen-moms, but I have had opportunities to pour into the lives of many.
This is one example of God using a messenger to make His divine plans known. Years and years ago, it was prophesied that I would be published and have a best seller before the age of 40. This prophesy has dulled a little and I often find myself trying to cope with the possibility that it won't happen. If there is no expectation, then no disappointment, right?
Yesterday at church, that prophesy was spoken again! Not the same exact wording, but it was said that I would put pen to paper and be published for His work and His people!
I thank Him for being ever present, ever constant, and infallible.
What promises has God made that you're still waiting on or losing hope for? Remember that faith is for the unseen things! Hold on! He will finish His good work in you. He didn't even hold back His son from you. What other good things then is He waiting and willing to give you?
Be encouraged!
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