Vulnerability in a new season

I gave my first lecture at BSF this week. I keep tearing up when I think about it, and so here I am, awake on the couch in the middle of the night because apparently it is time to write down my thoughts.

I entered into a new season this year; when I spent January asking the Lord what to do next, He handed me some new, unexpected assignments and reordered my life so that I could do what He asked of me. My children went off to school, and I stepped into two main things: He gave me women to pray and intercede with weekly, and He called me to be a substitute teaching leader at BSF. The former is an answer to a deep longing of my heart, the latter is…well, I’m still wrapping my mind around it because it’s new and unexpected and feels almost comical a role to be placed in.

Let me explain, the women in BSF are the same women who helped “raise me up” like sweet spiritual mother voices when I taught the students there 4 years ago; they’re faithful and wise and precious; some have walked with Jesus longer than I’ve been alive. If you looked through resumes to pick the most qualified person to fill this role, I’d be at the bottom of the pile. But Jesus tends to pull from the bottom of the pile, so here I am…brand new and learning on the job. And they’re helping me…and really, it’s probably the most biblical display of womanhood that I’ve ever been a part of; seeking Jesus together as we walk in obedience to what He called us to do, learning what it means to depend on Him for all things.

There’s the snap shot of my new season, and in it, I gave my first lecture. And I want to tell you why I keep crying when I think about it.

People only see me as I am today; depending on how long we’ve walked together or how many cups of coffee we’ve shared, you may know more or less of the experiences that shaped me. Maybe you were there through my joys and my losses, or maybe you’ve heard me process them, or maybe you have no idea what mountains I’ve climbed, what rocky ground I’ve crawled across, what stones have been hurled at me. While some of those experiences equipped me for my current assignment, others add an extra layer of vulnerability to it.

When I was growing up, I learned 3 lessons (spoken or implied, they settled in deep and took residence in my thinking): 
1) I had nothing to bring to the Body of Christ because I was female.
2) If I did have the audacity to bring anything to the Body, it would inevitably cause harm.
3) No matter how valuable, no one would want what came from me.

Obviously these are not so much lessons as they are lies. But it took me well over 30 years to even believe I was worth the full value of a human, so they had no problem finding ground to grow in me. What is interesting, is they didn’t produce someone with “self-esteem” problems, so to speak. I actually like me; I enjoy being who I am, I make myself laugh, I like the way I see the world, I enjoy the things I write, I am genuinely content with my quirks and ok with acknowledging my weaknesses. Instead, I feel like I’ve spent a lot of my life hidden under years of paint and mud wearing a coat of lament that no one would be willing to take the time to search me out. 

But Jesus washed me, and dignified me, and told me the truth again and again…and for years, I’ve learned to walk obediently and without expectation.

But it’s the “without expectation” part that He’s been slowly dissolving…and I think that’s why I feel so vulnerable in this season. Because I can see His intention and it carries expectation…and that feels terrifying to me.
It feels risky.
It feels vulnerable.
It feels uncomfortable.
It feels like I’d much rather crawl back into the prayer closet because I know I’m safe there.

I know that the Lord moves when He has me speak in front of people. 
And to me, the weight of that is staggering.
Maybe after reading the lessons I learned above you can understand why.

I am a woman, but my hands are not empty.
I would rather never speak than cause another spiritual harm.
And I am who and what God made me and nothing more.

The thing is, when we hear people share their thoughts on scripture from the front, we only see what they offer to us…we don’t watch how that offering was gathered. So I can sit in front of a group to share, and they hear the carefully prepared words I wrote on a page…but they didn’t see how I found those words, they don’t know where I traveled to gather them, they didn’t watch me wrestle and dance with the Lord for understanding. They only see the offering. And that is ok, because that part was FOR them; but let us never look at the offering of another and overlook the fact that there was preparation, that we are looking at the fruit of another’s labor.

After my first Ephesians study several years ago (which was the first time I ever invited women to listen to my thoughts on scripture in the way that I am shaped to speak it), I had someone who hadn’t come ask me to give them what I had written. And I surprised myself by saying, “No.” To one woman I looked like a person casually talking about scripture in their living room, but I was actually a person shaking off 3 lessons I learned; speaking out loud to others in my living room felt like stepping out of the boat in the middle of a storm to walk on water. I felt such vulnerability that the Lord had gone before me and set several friends beside me to physically steady my steps.

The Lord gave me this dream at that time: http://bigandlittlewords.blogspot.com/2023/06/consumers-or-contributers.html
In this dream, I am the mother camel.

I have been thinking about that dream, about my vulnerability, and about the women God has set beside me in THIS season to steady my steps. And while I tear up for multiple reasons, that’s the main one. These faithful women heard my words, but they also see my person; they covered me in prayer, they encouraged me, they tended to my needs…and afterwards, they gathered me in. They make me feel safe, like they will keep me tucked under their wings while I gather strength in my legs. 

At the heart of it, expectation is brand new to me. It brings with it the vulnerability of being consumed; if not by others, than by self or by the enemy. And so my faith must grow and stretch as I cling to Jesus…but today I just wanted to write down that I am grateful for the women I serve alongside.