Just Beginning

A few weeks ago, I sat in a room full of tools (actual tools, not the people kind) and had a heart-to-heart with an incredible woman who has become a sort of mother-in-faith to me.  As I've been preparing to leave my position with Teen Challenge, go jobless and head off to southern Africa, these talks have become increasingly precious to me.  When walking through a hefty period of transition, things can be both exciting and overwhelming.  All the while, this little spiritual powerhouse continues to breathe truth into my shaky soul every time we meet.  

Here she sits, 30-some-odd-years my senior.  We're sitting in this room full of tools and machinery through which she serves, doing the dirty jobs no one else wants to do day in and day out.  She works with her hands, but she lives from her heart.  She fixes a sink and mentors the girl living in that room while she tampers with pipes and drains.  She tells us when we are wrong and when we are right; she inspires us to turn our eyes upon Jesus in the mundane and in the magnificent.  She opens the Word of God to us humbly yet powerfully and we want to be more like her.  Then she says things like, "Oh no, I'm just the maintenance lady."  And I think, "Oh, you are so much more than 'just' the maintenance lady." 

I am full of gratitude for the women of faith and prayer that God has placed in my life.  As this friend and I talked that day, she ended our conversation by saying something I will never forget.  This woman who I so admire, who I pray I might have even a measure of her humility, faith and love, tells me:

"I think I am just beginning to find God's call in my life..."

Just beginning?  

Wait, you're like, 60-something, AND you've been serving God like a superhero for years now.  Just beginning?  

Yup...just beginning.

This is how it is with Him: beginnings...always new beginnings.  Beginnings that arise out of other beginnings, one creative move of God after another in a soul wholly surrendered to His love and His ways.  My dad used to say, "You will never come to the end of God."  I'm inspired tonight by the example of this mother-in-faith to me, who is living proof of this truth - you will never come to the end of God.  He is always working.

So this afternoon, I found my way back to a quiet room for some precious time alone with one of my favorite 60-something-year-old friends who is "just beginning" to find God's call in her life.  We talked about Jesus and how we love Him and desire Him; we talked about how He is drawing us nearer to His heart.  Once again she spoke truth and life into me; she challenged me and, in many ways, dared me to BE what I believe.  Then she prayed for me and we said, "Amen."  

And I walked away believing it too: "I am just beginning to know God's call in my life."  

Just Beginning,

Tara