Just before the wedding of our younger son in July 2012, I had sent up a small prayer of wonder: I wonder what I should do next God?  I wonder if working in a church might be a consideration?

We returned from the wedding, walked into church and decided to sit next to a friend of ours who that morning sat alone, without his wife by his side, since she was entertaining out-of-town guests.   The service began with a surprising announcement that our church was seeking a new office administrator and if anyone was interested, you could talk to the Chair of the Board.  I turned to our friend, who just happened to be that guy, and whispered, “I think I might be interested in the job.”

A couple of weeks later my husband Brad came home to announce that he would be let go from his job at the end of the month. As Brad walked away from his position, I began the process to step into this new role at our church.  However, over the next little while, I argued back and forth with God that perhaps this truly wasn’t the best placement, that someone else certainly could handle the accounting procedures better than me.  Lo and behold our church hired a bookkeeper, and I humbly mumbled my gratitude to God, instead of loudly grumbling my complaints to him.

At the same time, Brad and I found that we were mining the depths of our commitment to each other, as he struggled through job interviews and rejections.  Thankfully a close friend offered Brad work with his contracting business, while we muddled through this difficult time.  We struggled through our prayers to God, offering ourselves over and over again in his service.  We strove to remain optimistic, to trust his timing, to understand the lessons we needed to learn.  We prayed, we prayed, and we prayed.

After walking through eight months of unemployment, a job offer in an unexpected area came Brad’s way.  He wouldn’t have envisioned himself at this company, but God had, and knew precisely when Brad should be placed there.  We marveled, as we felt immersed by God’s grace.

As the summer and our older son’s marriage approached, we looked forward to truly celebrating the commitment of he and his fiancé’s love. A few weeks before this wedding I found myself offering up another small prayer of wonder to God.

I wonder if I can truly focus my thoughts to write the “toast of love” they requested us to offer at the reception.  I didn’t know if I could find the time, let alone the ideas to create a worthy toast of love.

About the same time I received an email from one of the women in our church that she was going to sign up to do an on-line Bible study called, What Happens When Women Say Yes to God, starting a week after the wedding, and could I send the word out to encourage other women to join her. Great I thought, one more thing to squeeze into the days before I took time off.  Wouldn’t it be easier to just ignore this request?  However, the title seemed to echo through my soul, I rolled the word yes around in my mind thinking about what it represented.

Yes, a yearning for more, an enthusiasm for more, a sureness of something more.   Just like a prayer, a prayer of faith, of enduring hope and unwavering trust.  Yes, a word of prayer that promises so much more.

I also had to chuckle to myself, because my repeated phrase to Brad as we focused on the wedding was, “whatever they ask of us, the answer is always, yes. “

Eventually, I followed through on the Bible Study information by saying yes to promoting it.  I ordered six books thinking that if the response was limited the leftover books could find a home in our church library.  And then God took my yes, and multiplied it.

We now have 24 women participating in this summer study and more are asking questions about it.  I just ordered another batch of books even though the study has already begun.

And for me, this study has brought me full circle back to my writing blog, abandoned last year amidst the anxiety of what would happen next.  When I read today’s study message I sent out another little prayer.  I wonder God, should I write something on my blog and participate in the blog hopping tomorrow?

After a busy day at the church I didn’t think I would have the ability to focus, but I opened my blog to read my last post in which I reminded myself to be gentle with my writing.

Even as I try to bring this to a close, I am breathing in a reassuring burst of energy that wants only to respond to whatever God wants me to do.  Has this been a year of wondering what will happen next?  Yes!  Has this been a year of being led into the unknown? Yes!  Has this been a year when saying yes has meant wave after wave of more opportunities to say yes? Yes!

The words from this week’s study that resonated loud and clear to me were these:

Saying yes to God “is having the overwhelming desire to walk in the center of God’s will at every moment.”

Yes… to yearn, enthusiastically, for the sureness of His love!

By the way, I did manage to write a toast to love for our son’s wedding.  When I said yes to that, God provided the words to come together.  Check back to this website to read the toast; after I edit it to fit into this blog!

Dee