Connections

Author's Website:
http://mylifeastheglue.com

Connections: A Quiet Ministry

I read today that Adele will be making her comeback performance at this year's Grammy Awards after requiring throat surgery last year.

We've seen this numerous times in the gospel world, as well. I'm not a singer, but I'm married to one, and I know he always remarks on these occasions how very scary it would be consider a life as a singer with no voice.

I'm a writer, but lately, I find myself without words. Oh, it's not that I don't have thoughts racing, questions to pose, or declarations, observations, recitations rolling through my head. It's just that, well, I've been listening more. And I hear God saying:

Just be quiet.

So I am sitting still. I am saying little. I am not returning most calls and not answering a lot of emails. I am blogging with much less ferocity (or at least, far lower word counts). I even took January off from writing this column. Because sometimes, when there is nothing to add to a conversation~

...it's ok just to be quiet.

In my stillness these last few weeks, I've found some peace and even-footing with God about the (somewhat undesirable and quite unexpected) circumstances my family is surrounded by right now. I've sat on the other side of conversations in which I let encouraging friends pretty much preach to me over the phone or over a doughnut and speak from God's word and their own experiences directly into my life. And I've stood next to my husband and made the difficult but clearly correct decision to push the "pause" button on another of our ministries, because everything happening around us, regardless of what we thought before, now seems to be saying, "This isn't the time."

So I find myself in a strange season of stillness. I am not running around trying to figure out how to fit everything into my day. I am not failing to meet deadlines. I am not in any sort of public eye. No one is calling to interview us about what we are up to, and few are asking if there is anything to do to help or spread the word.

Right now, we aren't Pacesetters in any venue save our own home. So there, we cling to to this pace:

Be still, and know that I am God! I will be honored by every nation. I will be honored throughout the world." Psalm 46:10

Yet those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary. - Isaiah 40:31

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. - Hebrew 12:1

A few years ago, I was reminded in a very poignant devotion that the word "ministry" isn't found in scripture. Ministry is a word that we now seem to assign to whatever programmatic religious work-shopping we involve ourselves with. A year ago, then, I was part of a magazine ministry, a gospel event ministry, a choir ministry, a worship ministry, a moms' ministry, a benevolence ministry. And by that same definition, I am now part of...none. Yet every day, Jesus is the air I breathe, my faith in Him is the philosophy I live, and the conversations I have with my family, friends, business associates, are all salted with His love. Am I not still a minister?

Yesterday, in a fit of great weather-induced energy, I gathered up about a half dozen boxes and bags of baby clothes and shoes and brought them to my neighbor's house. She volunteers every week at a center to help the homeless and is always looking for such donations. I added some gospel CDs and Christian magazines into the bags. Tonight, I prayed with my four-year-old daughter for a friend at school, one she says does not like her anymore. Those bags might not be a ministry with a logo, and that prayer might not have been heard by an audience under theater lighting, but those gestures are what God has me doing right now. Are those things, indeed, ministry?

Along with quietly, in stillness, waiting for what is next, that is the ministry I am led to do at this time. It's taken me weeks, but I'm okay with that.

Would you be?