Becoming MomStrong by Heidi St. John

Author:Heidi St. John [St. John, Heidi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: RELIGION / Christian Life / Family, FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Parenting / Motherhood
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2017-09-19T04:00:00+00:00

Because I didn’t trust God’s heart toward me, I had no intention of allowing Him anywhere near me with His divine pruning shears. Pruned by the Master? I thought. No, thanks.

Sitting in that auditorium, I had a crisis of belief. My hands were cold and clammy. My heart raced, and my stomach was tied in knots. The thought that God would ask more of me than had already been required seemed impossible to take in. If surrendering to Him meant I’d have to face more pain, I was sure I didn’t have anything left to offer Him.

I closed my notebook and went home. And for the next twelve hours, I cried. When I arrived at work the following morning, a few of my coworkers noticed my puffy eyes.

“Hey, are you okay, Heidi?” my friend Carrie asked.

“I’m fine,” I lied. “Just a little tired.”

Even at my weakest, I held the curtain securely in place. It was what I knew. Get things done. Be happy. Impress people. Smile. Be the best. Work harder. Pretend. But pretending is part of what happens when we are too afraid to let the light in. And it can last for only so long.

In the days that followed, Professor Mitchell’s words kept coming back to me. “Before God will use you greatly, He will wound you deeply.” I trusted Dr. Mitchell. This wasn’t theoretical for him—he knew pain personally. As a man in his nineties, he knew something that it takes most people a lifetime to learn: that often our greatest ministry comes out of our deepest hurts.

People suffer every day, but it’s not the suffering that’s transformative. Transformation happens when we allow God’s truth to shine onto our suffering. It’s what we do with suffering that ends up having an impact in this world. Think about it. Who better to minister to a woman battling breast cancer than a woman who has undergone chemo and a mastectomy? Who can touch the heart of a mother mourning the loss of a child better than a woman who has walked that road herself? No one can understand the pain of child abuse like someone who has also walked that long road to wholeness herself.

What Dr. Mitchell was trying to teach us can be summed up in one small but mighty word: trust. Do you trust God? Just like a master gardener prunes with purpose, He does too. He is in the business of pruning people: taking a rough, untamed heart and transforming it into the image of His Son. God’s heart toward us can be clearly seen in the book of Romans:

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