A Gift of Believing

I am so grateful.

I am a blessed individual.  Down through the years, people have blessed me and my family in so many ways.  It would be a very long blog post indeed if I listed all the ways that someone has touched our lives.  Some things I've already shared with you such as the time my sister-in-law helped us all get new Easter clothes when my husband was too ill to work. (Read about it here.) When our home was flooded, How God Gave Us What We Wanted recounted how our churches and many many people came and helped.  I wrote about the girl whose own home was flooded and came to fill sandbags at ours in a Friday's Favorite Five post.

The world is still filled with people who want to make a difference.

Today, I want to share about something in particular that someone did that made me happy. It wasn't a monetary gift. I didn't even recognize it for the gift that it was until years later.

It was the gift of believing in me.

First, a little back story.  18 years ago, I became a church secretary.  It was a wonderful time in my life, because for the first time ever I had a job I really enjoyed.  In fact, it was so much fun to me that often I would be involved with a project and forget to stop at quitting time and go home.  I lived for Mondays when the job would start all over again!

Life, being what it is, made sure things would happen to suck the joy out of my fun.  Things happened at the office and working was no longer the fulfilling adventure it once was.

Often, when God is ready to use you at a new level, you will start to feel dissatisfaction for the way things are in your life. This is so that you will be ready to do something new.

My previous pastor left and the church called Pastor G. as our new leader.  Pastor G. was such a hilarious co-worker! He was a natural comedian but he also had vision and discernment. Long story short, he saw potential in me and asked me if I would be willing to teach the young adult bible class.

Nervously, I agreed to give it a shot. I found I loved it but would never have attempted it had Pastor G not asked me.

Later on, he even let me lead a few midweek bible studies when he was out of town. And closest to my heart, he allowed me to share my devotionals in our newsletters.  

If I ever achieve my goal of being an author and speaker to Christian women, it will be because Pastor G gave me the gift of believing in me and a chance to start learning to chase my dream.

This post was written in response to Writer's Workshop prompt 5.) Tell us about something somebody did that made you happy.  If you'd like to read other stories, or share your own, visit Kat's blog, Mama's Losin' It.