He Is Faithful; He Will Do It

I love the idea of recording lessons the Lord is teaching me as "stones of remembrance" to remind me how faithful He has been in the past and thus how faithful He surely will be in the future.

He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.  I Thessalonians 5:24
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.  Hebrews 10:23

I've experienced a series of events recently which led to my realization of how the Lord is working in my life these last couple years and I don't want to forget this lesson.

I had the opportunity to attend a Ladies' Day a couple weeks ago where the topic was about recognizing and using our gifts.  The day was quite practical in nature and the teachers asked us to examine our own gifts and also to help one another identify her gifts.  Most of my gifts, unsurprisingly, involved people. I came away challenged and inspired to exercise my gifts of encouraging people, mentoring younger women, teaching and studying the Bible with ladies, and creating or taking advantage of opportunities to rally a group of people to study, serve others, or work together.

Frankly, as the next couple days passed, I became more discouraged than inspired.  I felt like I wasn't using my gifts; I felt like in some ways wasn't even being allowed to use those gifts.

So I spent an afternoon studying and praying.  I read Romans 12 and the admonition in verse 6 that as we each have gifts given to us, "let us use them".  I personalized passages in my journal like the following:

Ephesians 2:10--I am created for good works which God prepared beforehand for me to walk in.
I Peter 4:10-11--As I have received a gift, I must use it to serve others.  My gifts are provided by God's supply and are for God's glory through Jesus.

As I continued studying and meditating, I realized the Lord has provided opportunities to use my gifts, even if I'm not using them in quite the same way or with the same people I've used them in the past. Some of the opportunities He has been providing for me include:

• I was invited to study the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and share what I learned with a group of ladies at a Ladies' Day in Kansas City back in October.
• It has been two years since two younger women asked me to teach them how to use freezer cooking in the managing of their homes.  In that time, more and more ladies have popped in and out of our freezer cooking days until I've had the privilege of developing friendships with at least seven younger women.  Our time together includes many life discussions such as budgeting, child rearing, marriage, faith walk, etc. and we have all been richly blessed by our time together.
• I've had opportunities to gather several women from my homeschooling community in Bible studies and book discussions as well as joint efforts in educating our children.
• As my husband served as president of the board for the local crisis pregnancy center, he enlisted my aid in organizing their first banquet fundraiser, rounding up people to host tables and invite others, taking care of advertising and promotion, and behind-the-scenes organization.

I wasn't out looking for any of these opportunities, and didn't really even think of them as "using my gifts".  But the Lord provided the right set of circumstances for my gifts to be used even when I was feeling stifled.  I realized the Lord is not limited by human weaknesses, but will use us in His way and in His timing.