...BUT GOD...

It’s Saturday, 6.30 p.m. and I am sitting on the grass at the church ground, wondering what in the world I got myself into. Present Dot is silently cursing past Dot for biting off more than she can chew. I am overwhelmed at the disaster that I’m facing and I am exhausted from having been at church for twelve hours straight. The tent looks like a fabric closet threw up on it and I am scared to call the printers about our order, just in case something else has gone wrong. It has been a really long week of set-back after set-back and I don’t know if tomorrow’s event will even happen. Everything in me is screaming “GIVE UP!!!” I have paced, laughed, sighed, knelt and jumped up & down in frustration and I honestly cannot see a way forward. Our current product is less than mediocre and there are many people depending on the project; people I don’t want to let down....

It’s a Tuesday afternoon and I have been sharpening pencils and colours for an hour. I am frustrated and wondering if this is what the next year will look like. This is definitely not what I signed up for. I was very clear that I wanted to serve in the social justice department but here I am working in the children’s department. When I go home today and I count the things I accomplished, sharpening pencils is at the top of the list and I am gutted at the thought. A loud voice within me is saying, “How dare they waste your time on this! Go and hand in your resignation and join the corporate world.”….

It’s a Wednesday afternoon and we have received communication that we are meant to go to a high school for an outreach session. We arrive on time only to find that our seniors are not on site and are not picking up their phones. A teacher approaches us and asks us if we are ready and all the heads turn to look at me, waiting for me to make a decision; waiting for me to lead them. I feel out of depth in this situation. Give me children any day, but just PLEASE don’t put me in a room full of teenagers! They intimidate me! I am terrified of teenagers! What am I supposed to do? We have no game plan and I have never done this before. The students are waiting for us and we need to minister to them and be relevant. Aiyaiyai!! All I can think of is ‘This is not my responsibility. We can just sit here twiddling our thumbs until our superiors arrive and take charge of their mess.’….  

…BUT GOD….

I was overwhelmed, frustrated, angry, upset, exhausted, anxious and lost, but God came through for me. He gave me strength to keep pushing through. He made me get up and keep trying to fix the mess and used my fellow interns to encourage me. Half an hour later the tent looked like it had been done by professionals, and the next day the event took off without a hitch. A week after the pencil sharpening incident we sat down for a department meeting and I was placed in the social justice section of the children’s department. God made me part of a wonderful project that has the potential to change many children’s lives and I couldn’t be happier. On the day of the highschool outreach, our team stepped up to the task at hand; we divided ourselves and the students into manageable groups and were able to minister to them. God used that circumstance as a chance for us to share our stories with the students and several of them came to know Christ on that day. I remember talking about how no matter all the bad things that happen to the people in the bible, there is always a ‘but God’ and it’s the same in our lives. It has been so in my life. No matter how low, how far down the road one is, or all the wrong things I’ve done, there has ALWAYS been a ‘but God’. I was lost, BUT GOD saved me. I was depressed and hopeless, BUT GOD gave me hope and joy. I was a sinner, BUT GOD loved me. I can go on and on about all the times He’s come through for me; every low point was followed by a ‘but God’ which then became a highlight. To me, that is the very essence of my walk with Christ. It is one whole ‘but God’ experience through which I experience unlimited grace, love and forgiveness which transforms my heart. No matter what people say, the current circumstances and the overwhelming ‘facts’, there is always a ‘but God’. It is all about Him and there is nothing that He can’t handle. He is always there holding out his hand, waiting for me to seek Him, ask Him, call for Him and trust Him, and He always comes through over and above what I needed. I can never tire of learning this and I am slowly starting to look at low points as opportunities for a ‘but God’… All I need to do is Be Still.