A Strategy for All Situations Except Food Stains

  Of all the things in all the world, I would never say that I was a mentor or a guide or a leader. I hide and I cry. It's what I do. Of all the things in all the world that I would love to be it is a Titus 2 older woman teaching women about godly women things. I am passionately passionate about it but have yet to attain that goal. This is why it throws me off when another woman says something like, "Give me a strategy for getting through this situation." My face surely displays a look of "Who me!?" 

 Is it the silver highlights that are starting to grace my head or the hands that look like they belong to my grandmother that has fooled them? Something has made them take leave of their senses because they are talking to the woman who left the house with a toothpaste stain on her shirt and possibly forgot to brush the back of her hair (I am still trying to remember if I did, it's a terrible tangle). But, there it was a woman who looked tired and worried asking sincerely for wisdom and wanting to know how I got through situations like her own. 

 This is why I think discipleship is important. No, it's not because I have so much to share. It is because it puts my feet to the fire and it makes me accountable to how I live out my days. Am I walking the walk that I'm talking or am I all hot air? 

 In this situation, it may be that my walk and talk aligned in faith. It was a moment where I got alone and just poured out my heart to God then I was quiet and still and I listened to God and His Word rang out. He reminded me of His sovereignty, that He has given me my being, that He has gone before, and that He is and was and will be. For any situation, a good strategy is to remember that God is in every moment at every moment. He is at the beginning of an issue, in the middle and already at the end. If He put me there then He'll be there on the other side of it. Do I trust that? Do I trust that He is good and holy? Do I or does it just sound good to say? 

 Part of the strategy is to walk through the doubt and come out to the end of it so that you can confess it and move forward. There must be a sorting out of feelings so that they do not wrongly influence our perceptions and we can see Truth unclouded. 

 It is not for His pleasure that we have sorrow or trouble but it does bring Him pleasure when we grow from adversity. The other part of the strategy after you have walked through the doubt and sorted out emotions is to get some solid sisters to ground you in Truth and pray for you. This is where it would be great to have that older woman in your life being all Titus 2. 

 For one brief moment, I thought I may have been close but then I spilled cole slaw all down into my cardigan and all over  the baby. It might be a little longer before I am there.