probably my favorite question that i've ever been asked is when i was in the midst of complaining
which i can do pretty well and i was just kind of talking about how many things had gone
the way i didn't think they should have gone or were kind of taken away from me in the moment
and the man that was sitting at the table with me looked at me and he said
we could sit here and talk about everything that you've lost we can do that if you'd like to but
i'd love to pose another question to you i'd love to ask you what does this make possible
like with that out of the way what does this make possible
and something clicked with me and literally to this day that was years ago and to this day
every time i lose something or something goes away that i didn't think it should go my brain
goes straight to what does this make possible like what could change and so even with what we've been
through in the last year and a half and it has not been pretty there's plenty to talk about that has
not been good and even even to the point of my job stopped like everything just stopped and my first
thought was okay well what does this make possible and i'm so grateful that that was the question
that he asked me and that that was kind of how i looked at this i can't tell you that i've looked
at it like that every day let me be clear but that question has been something that has completely
changed my thinking and i'm so grateful for his words that day so beautiful okay i've been um
i'm older than all of y'all um which i'm sure is apparent unless i've had really incredible makeup
today but um but i grew up in an era where there weren't that many women who were in leadership
positions in the church or in ecclesiology there were some there's some amazing groundbreakers but
and so i had have a lot of those words spoken over me and so i i pretty much felt like
because i didn't marry a pastor and i can't cross stitch i just needed to keep my head down and and
you know just not not make too much of a ruckus and it wasn't really until i was probably almost
40 i was working in ministry have been a ministry of vocational ministry we're all in ministry
if you've given your heart to jesus we're all ministers of the new covenant but i always say
those of us who do it vocationally are actually the weak ones because we need financial incentives
so don't put us on a pedestal um but i've been in vocational ministry for the better part of my
adult life love you youth ministry loved working for repair church i was on a church staff for a
while but there was a season that my boss at a at a ministry had me had all of us in leadership go
to counseling and it was a counseling kind of like what you'd call enneagram today only was a lot
longer and i remember as an almost 40 year old woman having a very wise man say god made you a
teacher so i didn't have somebody christy when i was 16. tell me you know what do you want to do i
had almost kind of slid around what god had called me to do because my sweet mama who was always an
affirmer but the proverb she quoted me to me the most was um when words are many sin is not absent
and i was like oh i'm such a talker like i'm probably in sin all day every day and so i've been
telling stories since i was a kid but i i wasn't sure telling stories about jesus honored jesus
and even after going to seminary even doing it vocationally i just kind of i kind of was working
with my head down and it probably wasn't until i was in my my late 30s that i felt myself go oh
this is the way he's made me and i don't mean to sound hyper spiritual here but the question that
rocked my world was the one jesus asked peter who do you say that i am yeah and i had to start going
oh you you aren't just the king of all kings and the one who came to deliver me for my sins
you actually delight in me you actually knit me this way yeah i need to be careful proverbs says
that if you can't guard your tongue you know you won't preserve your life but it also says anxiety
weighs a man down but a good word gives him life but to to realize wow these words that fall out
of my mouth can actually illuminate who he is you know in the gospels we see the word kerygma in the
greek which means the proclamation of who jesus is the proclamation of the gospel i used to quote all
the time saint augustine and then i found out he didn't really say this but y'all probably heard
well you know i've heard it forever and i took it so deep in my heart that um preach the gospel as
often as possible and if you have to use words and i would feel so guilty i was like i'm just gonna
i've got to love people well i heard miss joyce say always put up your grocery cart
so i'd be out there in the rain putting up other people's grocery carts you know just
trying to really be active in my faith and not use my words and then i found out oh he didn't
even say that somebody made that up um because there are times we do have to use words to say
let me tell you what jesus did for me let me tell you about how he pulled me out of a pit
i dug myself and he carried me to a new place and so um i i'm still learning to guard my tongue
but i'm also learning to use it in a way that it illuminates how just what a good good god
he is how kind he is i hope you enjoyed this video subscribe today and you'll never miss a new upload
and don't forget to check out our better together shop thanks for being a part of our community