My dream a reflection of my heart

First of all I would like to start off by saying a big THANK YOU to those of you who have prayed for me, sent me messages of support and thankful for a wonderful conversation w/ an old friend last night.

Many of you have asked what it is that I would like to do, so I am going to share my heart. I have no idea how any of this will look or how the Lord will lead in all of this, but I am open and ready to take a leap of faith.

It will be three years ago this fall since the thoughts and dreams entered my heart and it all started w/ Facebook. The fall of 2010 appeared to be a pretty rough time for the marriages of many friends on FB. I saw where husbands decided that they no longer desired to be husbands and fathers and women were bad mouthing and belittling their husbands. I have also watched parents bad mouth their children. It is a trend that has continued and one that makes my stomach lurch and heart ache every time I see those types of status updates. Don't get me wrong, none of us are perfect, our spouses and children are not perfect and I think venting and reaching out for advice on FB can be a positive, but there is a fine line between venting and putting down someone that we love. As I watched all of this unfold online a desire to work w/ wives and mother's to work on conflict resolution w/ in the home and work on improving marriages and families built up inside of me.

We now live in a world of Pinterest and we see pictures of "perfect" meals and "perfect" homes along w/ a wide assortment of arts, crafts and do it yourself projects. While there are many ladies gifted in this area, many of us are not and looking at all of this and friends' status updates and pictures, mommy guilt can set in and cause us doubt that we are good mothers. The truth is that even if we are not gifted in this area it does not make us terrible wives and mothers. I would like to work w/ mothers and assist them in discovering their God given talents and abilities and then assisting them in making their homes what the Lord intended them to be and not what we think that society thinks our homes should be.

I post all of this knowing that 1) I have only been married for 8 years, 2) My oldest child is only 4 years old and 3) I am not the most dynamic speaker out there. Chonda Pierce and Beth Moore, I will never be.  Saying all of that I would love to participate in Women's Ministry Conferences, Women's Retreats, speak at Mother's groups and other groups as the Lord leads.

When the Lord lead me to SWBTS in the fall of 2003, my desire was to use counseling in a ministry setting and for the past six and a half years, I have been in a secular setting. Yes, I have learned a great deal about myself, was able to work on counseling skills, met many wonderful people and made some wonderful friends, but my heart has yearned for more. I would love to actually use Scripture and prayer into sessions and groups and let people meet The Counselor, who will do more for them than myself or any other person ever could.

As I type all of this I admit that I am scared to death of what this could be. I am scared of failing. Many of you who know me, know that I like safety, security and predictability. I like knowing that on set days of the month that X amount will be deposited into my checking account and knowing that our insurance is covered by the company and not coming 100% out of our pockets. Being married to one who is self-employed, I know that it can be feast or famine. At the same time I also acknowledge that the Lord has always provided and we have never gone w/out anything that we have needed. The thought of two of us being self-employed honestly scares me and this would be a huge leap of faith for me.

I also admit that I have NO clue as to how to even get started down this path. This is a dream that has really only been shared w/ a few people, so it's not something that people know about. I am praying that the Lord will use people reading this post and place people in my path to assist me in getting started on this journey.

Now that I have laid it all out there for others, I can only pray that the Lord would bless this dream and I pray that I will have the faith of a mustard seed to take this huge leap of faith. I also pray that if there are others of you have a dream that the Lord has placed in your heart, that you too will take the first step in verbalizing the dream and then take your leap of faith.