Ministry Moments

To be honest, Thursday nights are not usually my favorite night of the week.  Maybe it's the rush to put dinner on the table, then leave the mess behind to rush out the door to teach ESL at 6:30 (the students so make this ministry a joy!).  Maybe it's coming home to the dinner mess still there, only now with a living room full of young adults poring over their Bibles under Conroy's enthusiastic leadership.  Maybe it's the inevitable late night followed by an early morning in the classroom.  Don't get me wrong; there's nothing I'd rather be doing than serving with my husband, teaching, and opening our home for Kingdom purposes.  And typically the initial inward groaning of this introvert-at-heart gives way to whole-hearted interaction.  It just takes me a moment.

But tonight... Tonight I felt it.  I felt the soul-deep satisfaction of doing what we are put on this earth to do.  I felt the bit of heaven on earth that ministry can sometimes be --- the moment when you feel that all you're doing is really making a difference, and you actually see and feel that difference.  The moment when eternal impact is felt.

Tonight I saw it.  I saw it in the bright, upturned face of one who is seeing the purpose in her heartache. I saw it in the dawning of realization in the eyes of a young believer when he heard "there's no longer condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus" for the first time.

Tonight I heard it.  As I put away the dishes in the kitchen, the buzz of God-focused conversation sounded to me like the hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah.  I heard the rustle of the angels of heaven bending close to look into the things of grace they don't understand.

Tonight was a moment framed in gold, imprinted on my mind and heart, tucked away for pondering.  This is it.  This is why I do what I do, why I am what I am, why I married whom I married.  Our lives are all about God's Word and God's people, but the daily ordinary often feels less than significant. But tonight the ministry moment was tangible, the joy of it transcendent.