Once Upon a Time...

I read this today on one of my favorite blogs:

"You know, the more I write my life out, the more I become convinced that the church doesn't need more argue-ers, more fighters, more convince-ers. No, we need better story-tellers. Better lovers. Better truth-live-ers.

It's true that the best criticism of the bad is the practice of the better. I'm learning to simply let the ones guarding the table bluster and pontificate because really, it's okay. I'm not in charge of anything.

But I can tell a good story of how God came near in my life and how everything He touches gives beauty and joy and love and grace. How everything good in life is a glimpse, just a glimpse, of all that is intended."

-- from Sarah at  http://www.emergingmummy.com/

This past Sunday night at 'teen time,' our youth minister, Rodney, asked the kids to take a few minutes and write out their dreams on some slips of paper.  We collected them all and then took some time to pray for each one of them.  It got me thinking...  I don't consider myself much of a 'dreamer.'  And don't often see moments in my life as 'dreams come true' kind-of moments.  But just this past Sunday morning was actually a 'dream come true' moment for me. 

I have been dreaming, I guess you could say, for the last year about starting a class just for our senior high girls at church.  It was a dream born out of needs that some of the girls were starting to express about wanting a place where they could talk about and get answers to questions about things that they deal with, specifically, as young women growing in their faith and wanting to draw closer to God.  But to be honest, I didn't know if I was the right person to meet that need...

But then my friend Lisa and I started to talk and this dream began to take shape and gain some momentum and all the fears and reasons why I shouldn't be doing this began to take a back seat and God just kept whispering...  "This is the way; walk in it."  (Is 30:21)

So this past Sunday morning, our dream came true as we welcomed 12 of our senior high girls into the 'class' we are calling "Once Upon a Time."   And the reason that I love the above quote from Sarah at EmergingMummy is that this class is going to be all about 'telling our stories.'  We're looking at the stories of women in the gospels and the stories of their lives as they encountered Jesus.  And we're looking at the stories that God is writing in each of our lives.  Hopefully each of these girls will see that they have a story worth telling and one that could change the world...

The first women that we looked at this past Sunday were the 4 that appear in Matthew's genealogy of Jesus:  Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba.  These 4 women and their stories were perhaps what actually got me started thinking about all of this to begin with.  Honestly, if God was going to highlight some women from Jesus' ancestry, these would not have been the 4 that I would have picked.  But they were God's choice and I think it says a lot about God's character.  These women had broken and messed up lives and relationships for many different reasons - some of it was not their choice - some of it was. But God, in His infinite mercy and endless desire to see lives redeemed, used each of them to carry on the royal line that would lead to the birth of Jesus.  God was not deterred by their difficult circumstances or even by their sinful choices...  He was still willing to write HIS story through each of their lives.  And since I feel like I so easily could be one of these women - in many ways I've been where they've been - it gives me a whole lot of hope that God is still writing HIS story in my life... and I'm forever grateful.