..In the Midst of the Mess, Part 2

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Ok, I admit it.  Last night...I was ready to throw in the towel.  I mean, really throw in the towel.  I had decided that I was incapable of doing...well, what I was doing...and perhaps if I stepped down someone who had better people skills than me could take over.  And do a better job of pulling opposites together.  At least without inadvertently running roughshod over folks who were legitimately doing their best under circumstances I was clueless about.

I was ready to bail out,  run for cover, shut myself up at home because I didn't think I could EVER get this thing right.

But this morning...

Our first speaker was a lady I hadn't heard before, Amie Dockery.  I had no idea what she was going to talk about and, to be honest, I was expecting it to be good but not, you know, specifically applicable to my situation.

O mi goodness.

I do not know when I have EVER sat in a service in which the speaker described, right down to the words floating around in my brain in the last 18 hours, exactly what was going on in my life.

Now, there are a bazillion topics that she could have talked about in a women's meeting.  But she chose to talk about the lures the enemy uses to pull us away from God's purposes.  And these weren't the same ol' same ol' things normally heard.  No, she dug into the temptation of Jesus in a way I had never heard before.  I mean, I thought I knew what she was going to say...and she said nothing like I thought she was going to say.  She talked about three specific lures.

Not gonna go into her descriptions, but  all three lures had been cast at me since the sun went down last night.  And I was perilously close to falling for them.

That doesn't mean that I'm not a socially awkward person who routinely puts her foot in her mouth.  But what it does mean is that that is not a disqualification from service. I'm not allowed to quit just because I am flawed.

Ultimately, those flaws simply mean that I have to lean harder into God and my relationship with Him.

That's actually why they are there.

I told you.  Every year it happens this way...first breaking, then restoration and refreshing.  I should quit being surprised by it.