being Transformed

And be not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2
American Standard Version (ASV)
 
I remember my days at Vinings First Baptist Church as a time of transformation.  I was seeking to experience God and what He was doing and join Him in His work.  I talked to my pastor, Ted Holly and let him know of my desire to serve in the church.  I got my first assignment in March 1993.  I taught Sunday School for four and five-year-old children and worked with a group of teenage girls called Acteens.  I asked the Lord to lead and equip me to do His will in this church. 

The Lord used these assignments to continue to change my heart.  I also started volunteering with a Crisis Pregnancy Center and The Clay Home, a pregnancy care home.  I was stretched during this time, but I believe that God’s plan to was get me to look beyond my own problems and to be part of His plan for others. I trusted my daughter’s teachers at church to teach her as I taught others.  My husband was involved in the tape and sound ministry at church but never really connected there.  It was my desire that we go to church as a family and that my husband would trust the Lord with his whole heart.  I didn’t know it then but that opportunity to trust the Lord was to come after a time of testing.

When my daughter was five years old, I began to see evidence of her trusting in God.  We went out to eat as a family one evening and when my husband tried to start the car, it wouldn’t start.  As we sat in the car trying to decide what to do, Molly made a statement that shocked us both.  She said, “I am not afraid, I know that God is with me wherever I am.  He watches over me.”  That faith filled statement spoke faith and trust to me and my husband.  Later that night I recorded Molly’s words in my journal and thanked God for working in her heart.  That year, Molly asked Jesus to come into her heart and she was baptized by Pastor, Ted at Vinings First Baptist Church.  I continued to pray that God would reveal Himself to my husband. 

In the fall of 1995, God began to work in my heart to lay down my desires and to seek His desires for my husband.  I shared with Jack my desire to worship the Lord as a family.  I told him I would go to church with him where ever he wanted to go.  During that time, I had been listening to Christian radio in the kitchen as I did the dishes each.  Each night at 6pm, Michael Youssef, of Leading the Way was speaking.  Jack would walk through the room and would often comment on what Michael Youssef was saying.  When I asked Jack to choose a church, he said, “What about going to Michael Youssef’s church.  I realized it would mean leaving my assignments at the Baptist Church, but I felt this was God’s will for our family.  I talked to the Pastor Ted and my Spiritual Mother, Donna and both encouraged me to follow my husbands wishes.
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I am so thankful that I made that decision because God was about to answer my prayers.  But not before we experienced some testing.