I feel like God has been working on my character BIG TIME over the last several years. For a while it felt like I couldn’t catch a break. I knew God was there the whole time, but life was hard. My circumstances were difficult. Many thoughts of complacency, inadequacy, and inferiority began to rise up. When they did, I wasn't a super hero determined to slay those damning thoughts, but I did simply think to myself, "I can’t think this way."
A small, uneventful, anticlimactic realization… I can’t think this way.
I would love to say that I turned to my bible every time these thoughts surrounded me and that I would read an uplifting exhortation to help me see who I was through God’s eyes and who was I to think anything less than that I was a daughter of the King. Honestly, most of the time, I didn’t. I found solace, comfort and personal growth in reaching out to my daily relationships. I found that as I focused a little harder on loving my children well and investing into them, my worth as a very valuable part of their life brought me purpose. I found that as I sat with my parents or my sisters and laughed and enjoyed being with them in a relaxed family atmosphere, I was being heard and had value. I found that in the moments that friends came to me for advice or prayer or to just download a hard day into hearing ears, my issues didn’t disqualify me from being helpful. I found that as I focused on my job as creative pastor and helped shape a moment in our church service that would help people know the depth of God’s love for them, I had eternal purpose. I found that as chose to place myself in situations where I could be useful in any capacity, it began to slowly shape my thoughts and life into something more beautiful and refreshing then I could ever dream for myself.
The thought that comes in Ecclesiastes 3:11 : He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end, rings so true to me. The hard moments helped shape me to who I am today and the most beautiful part is that at no time was I forgotten or cast aside in the eyes of God. Every moment of pain, every tear, was shaping me so that I could give to the hearts around me in the future. It isn’t an accident that my life is where it is today. It was a very purposed act of a very loving father who took the most pain filled, ugly parts of me and turned them into something more beautiful and precious then my heart could dare to dream.
That simple, uneventful, anticlimactic decision when I told myself, "No, I can’t think this way"… It changed my life.
Ashley Mohr
Creative Pastor
