A MINISTRY I NEVER WANTED

I thought I knew what it meant to follow Christ and to take up my cross. But, over the years, I have learned that God often gives us ministry opportunities that we’ve never asked for and certainly never wanted.

When my heart was broken as a young single woman, God gave me a ministry I never wanted. He gave me a group of women with broken hearts to come alongside. Ministering to other single women was incredibly rewarding but also vulnerable and painful.

Years later, God called me to a new ministry in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. I never imagined spending nine months in a hospital with my very sick son. I remember holding him and thinking that once again, God had given me a ministry I never wished for. I can’t say I did this unwanted ministry well on most days. But, I have a few select memories of God working through my presence in this unlikely mission field.

I held a mom as her son’s heart rate fell to zero and the code alarm sounded. I prayed for so many heart babies whom I would never have known without this season. I prayed for my own son and sang songs to him about our big God and told him about heaven. This was my ministry. I wouldn’t trade this previously unwanted mission field for the world, no matter how painful.

Now that we have lost our son, I find myself in a new ministry. I never wanted to be in the “I lost a child” club, nor did any of its members. Since losing Hudson, people have reached out to me because they or a friend have lost a child. I don’t have solutions, but I am vulnerable and cry real tears with them. I simply hear their stories, share mine, and together we feebly try to see the hope only found in Jesus.

I am honored that God would use my broken heart once again in the lives of hurting families to bring glory for His namesake. For all of you stepping into ministry moments that you never wanted, God sees you and He’s equipped you, even if you never asked for it!