A Longing to Influence

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Technology can be a beautiful thing.  It can also be a very discouraging thing.  It is beautiful because it allows us to keep in touch with people and even get to know people that we'd have no way of staying in contact with otherwise.  It is discouraging for hundreds of reasons, but one being that when you are a stay-at-home mom, you see what everyone else is doing and you feel like...a nobody.

I follow various women leaders online.  Leaders who are doing amazing things.  Many of them are raising families at the same time they are spreading the love of Christ with the world.  Women like:

-Christine Caine- leader of Equip and Empower Ministries
-Lysa TerKheurst- author and speaker
-Jo Saxton- director of 3D ministries, speaker and author
-Beth Moore- teacher extraordinnaire
-Kay Warren- raising awareness about adoption and the HIV/AIDS crisis through her ministry.
-Lori Wilhite- leading a ministry to women leaders and pastor's wives called "Leading and Loving It"

Almost daily, through technology, I am hearing about these amazing ministries and women behind them.  They are changing lives through their home offices, through their blogs, through their speaking engagements....and I think, "How I long to do that! How I long to be used by God to change lives!"  Indeed, I would love someday to write a book, and be called upon to speak to the masses, not for my own glory, but because lives need changing, people need encouraging, and young women need older women to look up to.

Yet when I think of all the needs out there, I get overwhelmed.  I have such a heart for:

-training and developing leaders
-raising up women in ministry
-encouraging young ladies
-the orphans
-sex trafficking
-babies and children who are abused
-kids in the foster care system
-moms who need encouragement

I'm also reminded that right now, in my own backyard, is a need for a mother's group, specifically to ages 5+ (MOMS Next, perhaps).  Right now, in my own backyard, is a need for a network of women in ministry.  Right now, in my own backyard, are kids who need foster homes.  Yet I feel overwhelmed by what's going on in my own house - my low patience for my own two children (ages 4 and 6) who require my time and energy right now.  I get lost in a fog of all of the needs out there, and sink deeper into my couch wondering if I'll ever really be able to do anything to help.  I lose motivation fast when I look at the pile of laundry on my left and the mess of toys on my right.  I wonder if I'll ever be able to start anything, when I can't even finish a sentence without being interrupted.  (Even as I sit here typing, the boys are playing with toys on my desk giving me little room to move my arms) :)

Writing, speaking, traveling, starting things up....all areas my heart beats for, yet I feel the needs at home so strongly.  I struggle with comparing myself to these great women who are able to balance it all and do what they love.  For some reason I haven't been called to do that...yet.

Maybe you are like me, frustrated at times, trying to stay faithful to what's been given you, and praying for direction.  I have to remember that "the need is not always the call."  I also need to examine my own motives - why do I want to do these things?  For personal recognition?  To help people out of my own selfish needs or insecurities?  Because if that is in my heart at all, then I hope the doors will close for me.

For now, I pour my heart into the young girl who was in my home last week - who is a single mother struggling to keep her head above water.  I pour my heart into another young girl who is seeking for a mentor.  I pour my heart into the people I run into at the grocery market, and my neighbors, and the moms of the kids in my son's class.  I pour my heart into my own kids, and especially into my husband, so that he can minister more effectively.

I have to believe that these seasons serve a great purpose; that God is doing heart-surgery to refine things in us that would otherwise fester.  And I have to be okay with the fact that this is all I might end up doing, and that's okay.  God didn't call most of us to be well-known, or write books, or travel the world and speak.  In fact, most of the time He calls us to lay down our greatest desires so they won't become greater than our desire for Him. So for now, I wait.  I am reminded that God doesn't call us to be like other people; He calls us to be faithful to Him.

What does your heart beat for?