Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Inner Delight


Confronting and overcoming obstacles while sitting around a dining room table this past Saturday wasn’t about the food. In fact, that peppermint popcorn? Yum! The only obstacle between those kernels of buttery sweetness and my mouth was having only two hands to deliver them. What I’m talking about transpired with a small group of women who’re responding to God calling them to write…to write their stories, explore ideas together and share them with others, learning how to do that effectively. There are casserole-sized doubts and pressure cookers of misgivings and feelings of lack in each of us. As we opened our hearts we found serving platters of encouragement, affirmation, camaraderie, and strength, with a smorgasbord of humor on the side. And I came away with a feeling that I’ve struggled to identify. 

It is a sense of something special and wonderful happening, like when you’ve got the soup kettle on the stove,
and the ingredients are starting to simmer, smelling absolutely heavenly and promising. It finally came to me as I journaled later. I'm calling it "inner delight" and it lines up with a prophetic word given to me quite awhile back. 

It was about 30 years ago; I was attending a women's Bible study in a small church with a friend. During the small group discussion and prayer time, one of the women said that she had a "vision" pertaining to me. She “saw” me leading/teaching/mentoring women in some way. At the time I kind of scoffed at the idea, being a busy wife and mom raising four kids and I couldn't imagine women wanting to follow me anywhere or listen to anything I had to say. And this whole idea of “prophetic vision”? Lets just say it was a dish I was dubious about sampling.

Looking back I can see how God has led me through doors that I wasn't expecting, stage right and stage left and behind the scenes, has brought me through a variety of experiences, including leadership training and positions, and now He shines a light on this particular spot, the spot He intended all along. The inner delight that comes of being where He has called and prepared me to be as He overlooked
my initial scoffing, and the knowledge that He gave me the desire of my heart—His recipe for inner delight. Could be the woman in that Bible study group had a preview glimpse of it for me.

And these women I am privileged now to sit with at a table are ladling out all kinds of tasty words to savor.