This is the first in a five-part series on where God is calling me next.
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. – Psalm 139:13-15 (NIV)
When I was pregnant with my first child, it was real immediately. Like most women, by the time I knew I was pregnant, I was already feeling the effects. I felt the baby stirring before the kicks were noticeable to anyone else. I certainly felt the labor pains well before Dave was awake! While Dave was involved in my pregnancy, I don’t think it was really real until we got to the hospital – and especially when he held our sons for the first time.
As an introvert, there is always something being knit together inside of me. Over the years, I’ve become more aware that just like my pregnancy, everyone is not privy to what is happening inside me. Too often over our 20-year marriage, I’ve just handed Dave “the baby” without him really experiencing the pregnancy.
Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. – Psalm 139:16 (NIV)
Faith can be like that. There is a lot going on inside that others aren’t privy to. Like the new creation of a child, the Holy Spirit knits, kneads, and forms a new creation within each of us. Eventually, its effects are going to show up on the outside as well. New life wasn’t meant to be hidden and neither is a new and growing faith.
In my time of Sabbath these last eight months, I’ve thought a lot about the last few years and the Church. I’ve spent time reading and praying and talking with others. I’ve wondered where God is going to call me and when that might be. I wondered where God was going to call me because I didn’t feel like I fit in the churches I had served in previously. I’m still looking through the glass darkly, but God has been making it clearer. The “baby” is about to be born!
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with you. – Psalm 139:17-18 (NIV)
