Shoes TOO BIG to Fill

Picture this.....A nice quiet Sunday morning at church with nice quiet kids and all teachers and their helpers in their places waiting to teach all the sweet children. Okay maybe I should stop the dream while I am ahead.

Several days ago the children's director called me to ask if I would take her job as well as the sunday school directors job for one Sunday. I thought sure.....I am always up for a challenge and I love to lift the burden off of others if I can (this was the day after I asked you all to help me pray about where my ministry should be). She and the sunday school director would be on vacation. After hanging up the phone all the questions in the world were running through my head. I ended up sending emails to get answers to my questions. Things like.....where do the specific grades meet and who are the teachers, etc. Because I am fairly new to the church and especially to the children's program I really was not sure how everything worked. Nothing better than a "director" who is clueless...right??? After a few emails this past week.....I was feeling pretty confident that I could do the job (mistake number two......number one was saying "yes".....just kidding Deni).

I thought all things were under control and then Brian gave me a call while I was out shopping Saturday night to let me know that Mili was running a fever. This would make life more difficult for me because Brian would have to stay at home with her and he was suppose to be working in one of the rooms as a helper. I already knew that one person would not be able to make it during 2nd hour. So now I would have to find three people, one to replace Brian.....one for the person not coming and one to replace me (I was supposed to be a helper with Brian in the same room). This was all during the 2nd hour. I thought that the 1st hour was covered so I could work on replacements during the 1st hour for the 2nd hour. No one had called to say they couldn't make it so I felt good about it. The closer the time got to 9:30 the more nervous I became. Two helpers didn't show up for 1st hour and I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. We have guidelines in our child protection policy that have to be met on how many helpers should be in each room.

To make a very long 2 hour story short. God worked out everything.....like always. If I just trust Him everything falls into place. I am always amazed at how things DO work out and how WILLING some individuals are to help in the time of need. Out of all the places I needed to fill. I only had to ask one person to help and that person was very receptive and ready to help me any place I needed her. All the other places were filled by people who saw the need and met it.

My eyes have been opened to how much work goes into this job and at first I was very disappointed at how people didn't see that their actions (by not showing up) affects others. After a short time of venting, God opened my eyes to see all the individuals working so hard to make it work and I was so thankful for them. I told a few of them that I should kiss their feet for stepping in and helping at the last minute. The thing I must always remember is that God is always in control, but I can only see that control when I give up mine. What an awesome God we serve.

For those of you that don't know....our church here is about a 400 member church compared to our 60 member church in Arkansas. God came through like always...don't know why I ever doubt Him. My prayer is to be less controlling and more obedient to Him. God is definitely placing me in situations to test me (we have had some other challenges this past week as well).

Thanks for letting me share my experience with all of you. I hope it helps you to see places God is blessing you, your family and your church family.

Hugs and Kisses!!! Goodnight!