When I first moved to Kansas City I (Theresa) was sort of scared of having children. In some ways I didn’t want children because I had it in my head that it would hinder me from being all out radical for Jesus. Now I see that one of the most radical things I can do for Jesus is raise my children to love Him with their whole heart, soul, and mind, in a generation where darkness is increasing and so many things try to pull us away from Jesus.
Shortly before our first son was born on a camping trip I was wrestling with having kids would keep me from being able to do much ministry. God showed me a family of geese, a mother and her babies. He spoke to me that the geese was still fully a geese doing all the things geese do just a little slower pace with her baby geese, but I saw the beauty of doing life together as a family, rather than alone. He was showing me I could still be me and do what He called me to do, it just might look differently with children!
I still have moments where I wish I had more time to pray in the prayer room and do more ministry outside of the home, and wish Jonathan and I could switch places! But God is so gracious to meet me in the small moments throughout the day, and i have learned to take nothing for granted! Once a week I serve in the prayer room without any kids for a few hours, and it is one of my favorite times of the week. Recently some schedule shifts made it not look likely that I would be able to go all by myself anymore. At first I was devastated, and I was discouraged by this possibility. But then God spoke to me in the prayer room as we were singing about being pillars in His house and the longing to never leave His presence. He told me that I had lost sight of eternity, that when I die in this age my life isn’t over, but only just beginning. My ministry assignment and serving the Lord will continue on in eternity. There will be one day that I will be a pillar in His house and never stop ministering before Him. We won’t be floating around in fake nebulous bodies, but we will be in resurrected flesh bodies and we will be working for God and walking out the fullness of our calling after Jesus returns! There is a physical reality to eternity that if we can embrace the truth of this today, our temporary circumstances that we wish we could change or we might from time to time feel stuck in are just a short moment in time. This can encourage us to embrace the circumstances He gives us in each season of life with greater strength and grace!
God has pressed upon my heart the beauty and the importance of pouring out all that we receive in God to the next generation! How could I keep the encounters and revelation I have in the Word to myself? Personally encounters with the Lord are of course always good and necessary, but if I can’t involve my whole family and do ministry as a family I don’t want it because there is power in ministering before God as a family as we train our children how to walk according to the Spirit!
