For years it was on my heart to volunteer at the Pregnancy Resource Center in town. As my children became more independent and after some personal schedule pruning, the time was finally right, and I began training. I thought my life experiences would be helpful in counseling women in crisis pregnancies and abortion recovery, but I was amazed to discover that God would in fact use everything I’d experienced in life. Events that I may never understand and some that I’d blocked from memory have all come up and proven to be of use in serving clients at the center.
Having been through remarkable healing myself in so many areas, it’s thrilling to have the opportunity to use every speck of it to help others. Because God has brought me through so much, I feel deeply aware of his great love. Being able to extend the overflow of that love in serving others is to continually take part in a miracle, and has strengthened my faith and trust in an enormous way. God has absolutely revealed to me that he can use all things in our lives for his triumph.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28
Years after I accepted Christ’s Lordship and forgiveness, I covertly challenged him, “I’d like to see how you can use the wreckage in my life for your glory!” I thought this half expectantly but also with a good measure of unbelief. I was really asking him if he could. Like the man in Mark 9 who held out his son to Jesus for healing and asked, “If you can do anything, Lord…”
One day it was as if God challenged me back, “Will you trust me enough to let me show you how I can use the rubble you left behind?” As soon as I laid down my skepticism, the door of effective ministry seemed to fly open; what had once been a wake of debris suddenly became a quarry of raw materials for serving others.
At the end of a work day at the center I often drive home with a huge grin on my face, marveling at the privilege and opportunity to serve God by helping women with whom I so plainly identify. I treasure the wonderful satisfaction of being poured out and at the same time filled up.
