Everyday Evidence
Reflecting back
on the journey – December 2002
This
journal is written to demonstrate how Everyday
Evidence is truly a God thing and not a Jen thing.
If it had been a Jen thing my type A personality would have had me
bulldozing through obstacles to get from point A to Point Z.
The project definitely would not have taken from July of 2001 to December
of 2002 I can tell you that. I can
also tell you that if this had been a Jen thing it would be a flop, only a
testament to my own pride and not the true testament to God’s glory that I
feel it is.
It
was a Tuesday morning. I was
working in my office at my father’s construction company.
I had finished my paper work and had some time before I had to leave to
be at church for Christian Kids Club. I
decided to read a few entries in a new book I had recently purchased, Boundless
Love, a book of devotions written by the Women of Faith.
I
began reading at page 18, “Hosanna the Donkey,” by Sheila Walsh and read
through to the end of “They Call Me the Wanderer,” on page 33 also by Sheila
Walsh. I loved these stories!
I was immediately struck by how simple yet how powerful they were.
I also thought, “I have stories like that and I bet others do too.” At that moment I felt convicted to pray regarding a ministry
I was asked to be a part of the previous Sunday.
Let me tell you – God is good! He
spoke to me in my heart right there in that moment in my dad’s shop while I
was surrounded by various tools and equipment.
(Hey, as I write this I’m having another EE moment – God is
everywhere and a construction shop is definitely something the ultimate
Carpenter would know something about and feel at home in.)
God told me to say no to the other ministry, but that He did want me
involved in another ministry. God turned on the light bulb in my brain and I was flooded
with the idea of the women of First Baptist writing their own book of devotions
of God moving in their lives. I
still get goose bumps thinking about it.
Well,
I hurried off to church and grabbed my mom and my pal Dianne and shared with
them this great new ministry idea. A
true testimony of God’s support of His ministry through me is that I have had
support from the very beginning from everyone I have been led to share this
with. Dianne spurred me to put the
idea to paper. That afternoon that
is exactly what I did. It just
flowed on to the page in a totally organized yet creative format.
I usually agonize over every word, comma, etc. wanting my writing to be
perfect and still have at least one typo, but not this time.
It was awesome! I e-mailed
it to Dianne and to the church’s minister of education and again I received
such support.
This was a time of prayer. I actively sought God’s guidance, and inspiration. God had me in a time of waiting or anticipation. I’m not a good waiter, but I was able to hang in there and God provided in His time.
Just
prior to me starting the new school year I received Godly inspiration that
became the story, “Let’s Talk
Wrinkles”. Again it flowed
out of me so easily so I knew it wasn’t me; it was God.
I shared the story with my mom and my pal Dianne.
Again I was encouraged and Dianne became a great prayer warrior for EE.
This
was again a time of anticipation. I
must admit to some impatience and some disappointment.
I was receiving no clear instructions of what to do next, and no new
inspiration. God was making me wait
on purpose. He knows me!
He knows I would rush it and my pride would want me to take the credit.
During this time I was given time in a few Bible studies to share with
some trusted valuable friends the basis for EE.
Again much encouragement. And
again God provided. He provided me
a closer friendship with my friend Sheila.
She has a wonderful gift of writing!
After one Bible study meeting Sheila slipped me an envelope and asked me
to read it after I got home. I
actually waited – highly unusual for me.
It was her wonderful story about her grandmother’s quilt.
God may not have been inspiring me, but boy howdy was He inspiring
Sheila. Over the next few months
she provided several moving and touching stories to add to the collection of EE
stories. I started my first of many
manila folders and God took me to the next step.
Because
of my Type A personality I started to tell God that He needed to get a move on
with EE. Time was wasting.
(I’m sure I provide God with at least a couple good chuckles everyday.)
But God is sooo good! During
one of my morning prayer times I actually stopped talking, laid back and closed
my eyes. God spoke to me in my heart again!
It was awesome! He
took me on a visual walk of His daily miracles I see, but don’t SEE.
He let me know that He provides daily evidence of His existence, majesty,
and worthiness of worship. I knew
that Everyday Evidence was the name.
Have you ever had something just feel right?
Well, this just felt and feels right.
This was still a time of anticipation, and prayer. So many were so supportive and joined in prayer.
During this time God purposefully impressed upon me that it was time to purposefully move forward.
This
was too cool! Almost exactly one
year after God led me to this women’s ministry I went to the Women of Faith
conference in St. Louis with some of my pals from church.
During the conference I was able to meet Sheila Walsh.
She signed my Boundless Love
book and as I told her a little bit about the idea for EE.
She was so kind. She said
that through this ministry one of the blessings would be growing closer to the
women of my church. She has been so
right. There are women who have
submitted stories that I have known for years, but did not know about some of
the intimate details of their lives that they chose to willingly share in their
submissions.
I just had a realization. Wow! God is good! I know I keep saying that, but He keeps showing me His wisdom over and over. The realization has to do with the stationary we chose to send out the letters inviting the women of FBC to share their stories of how God moves in their daily lives. The stationary was bordered with a vine and this connects with what turned out to be the last page of EE. I’ll explain about that later.
Well, the letters went out and I presented the ministry first in my Sunday school class as a dry run then I presented it in both worship services. Also during this time I checked out publishers and decided on one with a good reputation. It had previously been owned by a Godly Christian man, who though no longer the owner was still the manager. During my conversations with the representative not only was I receiving price information, format, color, etc. I was getting to tell him about the content of the book, how it came about – that it was a God thing. He found it very interesting and if nothing else seeds were planted.
September
2002
Everyday Evidence’s nickname EE was solidified. Many of the submissions came to me through e-mail and the subject box usually simply read EE. During this time ideas for publishing were being e-mailed back and forth. God was definitely in the cyber space surrounding Mexico, MO. At this time I was still not inspired to write any more stories, but that was okay. I assumed my role was to be organizer and editor. Thankfully Sally and Erin volunteered to help me edit and to contribute some wonderful stories of their own. All three of us work with high school students but in two different buildings. We would send packages of edited stories back and forth between our buildings several times. God was in the school system. And not only that way. There were occasions I had some EE stuff scattered on my desk at school and some of my students would ask me about it. I can talk to them about God if they bring up the subject so when they did I did. I usually received a positive response. Cool Beans! God was preparing the soil and planting seeds way before the book was ever published. As the stories started coming in God’s hand was once again evidenced. An amazing variety of intimate stories from some amazing women were submitted. At first in my humanistic point of view I wanted a large number of stories – I was looking for quantity. God told me to appreciate the quality, to keep my focus on Him – that these stories were glorifying Him.
October
2002
The deadline for submissions was to be October 1, but we fudged that a little because several women came to me and asked if it was too late to turn in a story. I couldn’t say no. And guess what - I was one of those women with “late” submissions. God had gently led me through the conception of this ministry, the first story that was used as an example and then through the organization, editing, and compiling. He knew I am a step by step one thing at a time person. When I was done with those steps He again inspired me. He did it in a cool way too. Once again I was in my safe place to share – my Bible study class and flippantly made a comment about funnels and strainers and Dianne told me that was an EE. Boy was she right! Any more almost everything I think of or witness I think of in terms of EE. God is evident everyday if we/I stop to notice. It’s a purposeful thing. The next morning I burned up the computer keys writing that devotional and in the next week or so I had written two more! I am truly blessed that God urged me to use the talents He gave me – the “talents” of writing and organization in this ministry He chose for me.
November
2002
Early in the month the editing was done. The typing of them so they would all be in the same format, and saved to one disk was done. I thought I had it all figured out. I had decided the book was going to be gold in color and I was going to have a closing page that said something along the lines that I hoped that whoever read the book enjoyed this little golden nugget of God’s presence in our daily lives. I shared that with a few others. My pal Dianne and my mom helped me pour over the color samples from the publisher. But guess what all of the golds, and yellows were not what I had envisioned. I was disappointed. I told God (I’m sure this was another one of those daily chuckles I provide Him.) that if He wanted it to be gold to show me which one. God told me to make the book green. Ha! This is where the connection to the stationary comes in. It was green with vines – a neat connection to the green color. Dianne and I tossed around ideas what to do about the last page. How to change the nugget thing to something associated with green? We tossed around the idea of the vine so I searched through Bible’s concordance, which I just happened to have with me at school that day and looked up all the verses I could find about vines, seeds, and plants. God lovingly led me to the passage in Isaiah that is now on the closing page of EE. It is a very moving passage and perfectly fits what this book is meant to do – the color, the verse, everything – A God thing!
Well, mid to late November things got interesting. I was sure God wanted this book ready by Christmas. I had the price information and turned that into the finance committee. I was just sure they would approve. I was wrong. I was told they loved it, but there was no money for this extra expense at this time. I was shocked. How could God not provide? Well, He did, just not in the traditional Baptist committee way. A woman led by God is donating the money to cover the entire cost out of her own pocket. Once again God is demonstrating that this is His ministry for His glory and He provides in His way and His timing. I had already contacted the publisher rep. to tell him that the project may have to be put on hold. He expressed disappointment, but said to call him anytime if things changed – which they did in only 24 hours. Wow! So the publisher representative and I met just before Thanksgiving. I gave him a hard copy, a disc and the color choices. Things looked good and I felt great. Let me tell you God’s ways are definitely mysterious to this human. He definitely has a sense of humor.
I forgot to mention a couple of other interesting things about putting the devotions together as a book. We had to decide what order to put the devotions in. Well, it was finally decided to put the devotions in order alphabetically by title. This was another God thing! There was a nice flow from devotion to devotion, people who had submitted more than one didn’t have theirs all grouped together and the truly cool thing is that the first devotion submitted turned out to be the first devotion in the book. I just love that! The other interesting thing was that I had forgotten about the notes page – you know giving credit where credit is due. Well, this caused a problem because that made 65 pages. The publisher prints in groups of 8 pages. 65 pages meant another run just for one page. Back to the drawing board or the computer in this case. How could I change things to make the book be 64 pages? As it turned out I had a typo in one of my own devotions and when I changed it my devotion was shorter and the book became 64 pages. Proofreading your own work is the hardest thing!
December 2002
I started to get a little worried I hadn’t received the proof copy like I thought I would. So I e-mailed the rep. twice and received no answer. This began a series of wacky phone calls, e-mails, and delivery mix-ups. Jeanne the church secretary and Dianne helped me give the rep a call to find out what was going on. He did some checking and said the package had been delivered on Thursday, December 12 at 10:28 am and someone had signed for it, but UPS didn’t have their electronic record for some reason to verify who signed for it. A mad search of the church took place – no proof copy. It didn’t come Friday. More phone calls. The school secretary thought I was planning a party and not inviting her because I received about a dozen calls during my planning hour Friday the 13th. I stopped and prayed – saying I was not superstitious that I knew God had a plan and it would work out as He wanted it to. I really didn’t feel any anxiety. The final plan on Friday was that another overnight copy would be sent to me at my home on Saturday. So, I cancelled my plans and sat around the house. No delivery. The rep and I talked by phone a couple of times and he said he would check some things out Monday morning and get back to me. My only concern was getting them by Christmas. I received the call Monday. You’ll never believe where the first proof copy went - New York. I guess God had someone in New York who needed these stories. Isn’t that cool! The rep. faxed me a copy of the cover, verified that the proofers at the factory had thoroughly proofed the content for any of my typos and the book was put forth for rush printing of 500 copies.
Today is Tuesday the 17th. The expected delivery date is this Friday so they can be prayed over and presented to the church the Sunday before Christmas. I definitely know of some people that I would like to read this book. People who may feel uncomfortable reading the Bible but who may read this simple yet touching little book. So right now is another time of anticipation to see God at work.
I’m currently experiencing some personal turmoil, but God is my sustainer and He continually provides me with evidence of His presence in my everyday life. Just today my pal Dianne and I along with Jeanne the church secretary were excitedly waiting for the books to be delivered. I’ve mentioned the doubts about that the books being completed by Christmas, but PRAISE GOD they are here. Just the other day Dianne and I were thinking of how to distribute the books and we thought, wow 500 books doesn’t seem like that many books any more. Guess what. We received an extra 140 copies at the original quoted price to compensate for the delays. We were so excited. Dianne and I were able to share further testimony with Jim, the publishing rep. He agreed that this is definitely a God thing. Right after that the lady who delivers mail came in and she seemed to be weighted down with all of the extra Christmas mail – I offered her a copy of the book. I usually never do things like that. After I left church I went to my dad’s shop to do my usual Friday afternoon thing. I showed him a copy of the book and he immediately shared it with a friend of his who had stopped in. The other gentleman asked if he could keep it and contributed $20.00 toward the EE fund. God is so worthy of praise!
Thank
you Heavenly Father for being my Sustainer and allowing me to join You in Your
work. May Your will be done in
reaching the souls who need You in their everyday lives and not just doing the
traditional Christmas church visit. I
know am not being very eloquent Lord in praising You, but please look into my
heart and mind to see my love for You. In
Jesus’s precious and holy name I pray. Amen.
December 23,
2002
Yesterday
I was concerned with getting to church early enough to set up displays of the
book. How many to set out, how to
arrange them, etc. I was also
concerned with what to say to the congregation in the two services.
Once again God provided! I
had to restock the three displays four times!
God also provided me with the message he would have me speak one for each
church service. I’m carrying some
books with me in my truck so if opportunities present themselves as I’m out
and about I can present them to people.
I have had that opportunity a couple times already.
I will go to church early tomorrow evening before the Christmas Eve
candlelight service to make sure there are books available to any whom would
want one.
Well, we had a white Christmas. The candlelight service on Christmas Eve was cancelled due to the weather. I think every woman in my family has been given her copy and they seem genuinely excited and pleased to receive it. I find it difficult sometimes witnessing to family because they really know me and have for almost 38 years. That is a lot of time to see my miss-steps. I still need to give two cousins their copies, but they each have just had babies within the past month. I’m going to slip their copies in with their baby shower gifts (we had to postpone the showers earlier). I’m sure they will both want a little quiet time with God’s inspirational word. I brought home @ 25 copies and they are all gone. God has provided many opportunities for me to hand them out. That is a miracle because I usually feel so uncomfortable in those circumstances.
February
1, 2003
Listening to God’s prompting to discover how this book has touched hearts.