Life is Changing

May 22, 2010


I read the book Captivating several years ago. I remember getting to a section near the end of the book and feeling my eyes fill with tears. It occurred when Stasi Eldredge wrote about a friend named Tammy. This is how it goes:

“My friend Tammy has been a leader in women’s ministry for decades. She is a gifted woman, totally sold out to God. And a few years ago, God invited her to come away with him and sit at His feet. Alone. He called her o leave her position on the church staff. He called her to quit leading her small group, her Bible study, her accountability group. He asked her to become a woman of “one thing” – to become a Mary, a woman devoted to worship. To minister to the heart of God.

Tammy chose to say “yes” to God and followed his lead into the sacred realm of his heart. Her friends thought she was nuts. The church leaders chastised her publicly for abandoning the Great Commission. She was accused and misunderstood. It hurt. But God had captured Tammy’s heart and has been capturing it ever more deeply since. She has been captivated by his beauty. And his radiant beauty shines forth from her countenance.

Tammy became a worshiper, and her life of pouring her adoring devotion onto Jesus has become a beacon and a call to countless women to do the same—to attain to the high and holy calling of ministering to the heart of God and to discover ever more the treasure of who he is.”

At the time I read this, I had never heard of ministering to the heart of God. I didn’t know God needed or wanted that. Since then I have sung two songs that mention the heart of God, but it’s not discussed in Bible study or sermons. So I emailed my pastor, and he wrote back confirming what it meant to be a person of one thing. It was a real option—not just something Stasi made up. (That's a joke.)

In the last five years, I have returned to that passage a few times and felt the same yearning each time. I would get tears in my eyes. When I read tonight, though, there were no tears. I don’t have to yearn for this anymore. I can do this now. I am going to retire from teaching middle school, so I can worship God the way I want to worship Him.

During the last three months, I have felt concern over not being able to use my gifts of healing and prophecy. They seemed to be dormant. Then recently, we have been praying for each other during our church services. I have begun to feel revived again, and I’m back at the front of the church singing, so that I can’t do anything except worship Him.

When I prayed about wanting more of Him, God told me it was my ever-more-demanding life as a schoolteacher that was keeping me from worshipping Him the way I wanted to worship Him. I can’t get down on my face and praise Him in the morning without being late to work. I don’t get enough sleep during the week to get up any earlier. And I have the weird idea the living things in my house have higher priority than paperwork. It’s time to retire.

My school district helped by proposing an Early Retirement Incentive Package and giving me medical insurance until I turn 65. The decision was easy to make, and I have been very happy with it.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12:1-3.