Still Here

In a recent conversation, I was reflecting on the end of my first year of seminary when I essentially prayed, “God, I do not want to pastor a church. Please give me something else!!”

I’m not 100% sure that I said “please.” I hope I did. Either way, he answered my prayer. I look back at that with gratitude. God can take the yelling, the overwhelm. Of course he doesn’t always respond as we’d like yet his grace always flows.

There have also been those instances of, “I know you called me but you can un-call me now.” I picture God chuckling at that one with a sarcastic, “There, there.” I don’t know if God is sarcastic. I suppose I’m projecting. That’s certainly how I’d respond to me.

I also remember that our God is not slack in keeping his promises. He is long suffering, wanting all of us to live with him for eternity, starting now. So go ahead and yell and pout. But don’t quit. He doesn’t regret inviting us into this life. He did it because he knows that through the Holy Spirit, we have all the power we need to help one more person decide that turning away from the life they’ve known and turning toward Jesus is their best next step. God knows there’s something about you and me that enables us to talk about his love in a way someone else can understand. Whether God’s love is clarified during a short but intentional chat after a worship service, over a meal, during a hospital visit or in a sermon, it becomes the one thing others don't want to do without.

But perhaps you need a shift.

Go to therapy.

Ask someone you trust to mentor you.

Trust God and go on vacation.

Do whatever you need to do in order to stay in the will of God for your life right now.

An interviewer asked me what resilience looks like in my life as a woman who is a pastor. I said, “I’m still here.”

Michaela Lawrence Jeffery pastors the Athens Georgia Seventh-day Adventist Church in Athens, Georgia and she’s grateful for the almost two years she was about to edit this newsletter.