I am not a leader. I do good in second command but leading is not my forte. So when I was asked a couple of years ago to lead a support group of moms with special needs kids I immediately said no.
My heart just wouldn't be in it. It's not me. It's not for me. It's not my thing. Nosireebob. I can't do that.
I didn't even think about leading a group again until this past summer. The thought managed to creep in to my mind. It seeped into my heart. It gnawed at me but I pushed it away. It's not my thing. I was questioning where on Earth this idea was coming from, so out of the blue like that, while I should have known the thought wasn't coming from Earth at all. It was being written in my heart from the Heavens.
I truly pondered the crazy idea of leading a support group. I rationalized myself out of it though. I am not a leader. I don't want to be in charge. I don't pray well out loud. I stumble over my words. I talk too fast. I talk too much. I don't know enough scripture. My heart is still healing how can I lead a group. And on and on I went getting the idea to disappear.
And then in October I was talking to a friend when I heard the idea creep in again. This crazy idea was even stronger than before. And before I talked myself out of it, while I still felt a strong link to it, I shot off an email to one of our pastors asking if they even liked the idea. I asked if they could give us a place to meet. I asked if they would come along side and support such a ministry if one existed. I asked what they thought of it all the while not committing to leading it. Never thinking I should lead. Just wondering if it was something they would be interested in having at our church.
While I waited to hear back from the pastor about his thoughts, I received immediate confirmation that I was doing what God had desired from me for sometime. He was patiently waiting on me to be ready. And when I started to test out whether this was really something the Lord was leading me to do, he confirmed it. How so? Minutes after shooting off the email to the pastor, an email arrived in my inbox. It was from the woman who had asked me two years earlier to lead a support group. She sent me a message asking me again because she said there is such a need here for it and she thought I should do it.
Imagine the coincidence: I don't talk to this woman often and have not talked to her about leading a support group in years. And she just so happens to send me an email asking me if I would lead one while I just so happened to be waiting on a reply to an email I had sent minutes earlier asking our church about starting a group.
I do not believe in those kinds of coincidences.
I believe my very patient God waited on me until I was ready to entertain the idea. And when I finally entertained the idea, testing to see if God was serious about using someone like me, he gently said yes. He has showed me that I didn't need to be ready, I just need to trust him.
God doesn't always call the qualified. He qualifies the called. That's what I'm banking on. 'Cause I'm just a girl from the Ozarks who's never been a leader.