My Ministry

I had a strange dream last night.  

The setting was a gathering of Christians meeting together to hear speakers teach.

During one such meeting, the woman teaching the class was speaking on the do's and don'ts for God's followers.  The example given was high-heeled shoes.  She was explaining that heels were acceptable but stilettos were not.  Even though the heel-height was exactly the same, she was arguing that the shape of one heel was appropriate and modest, while the other was sinful.  In my dream, a young man was assisting her by showing an example of each.

(Don't laugh!  I know this seems like a ridiculous example, but I am quite sure that there are Christians that would agree with this thinking, and if not this, then something equally inconsequential.)

I challenged the young man to  explain why one would be acceptable to God, while the other was not.  Because of my arguments, he confessed that he had similar questions about photography. He had some implied nude photographs in his room, and he wondered if they were ok, since they didn't really show any private parts, or if they would still be considered pornography.  I started to tell him about the photography my husband does, at which point the leader of the group admonished us for being disruptive and not participating.

Then I woke up.

As I was waking, I had these thoughts in quick succession:  

First, I should take the young man aside, listen to his concerns, tell him my experiences, and let God do the rest.  

Second, that my ministry is about love and acceptance.  As much as I would love to be in a leadership role, speaking, teaching, or leading, that type of thing would only go to my head, so it is probably not God's plan for me.

Finally, I thought of all the unlikely people that I have already encountered that just needed to know that they were acceptable to God as they are, even with the crazy thoughts, strange histories, etc.  People that I would never expect to seek me out.

I know this is a strange thing for me to write about, but I've often questioned why I felt the need to become a Christian after all of these years.  I've also thought about how incompatible my way of thinking is with status quo of Christian beliefs.  I ALWAYS question the legitimacy of believing in something unseen.

Considering this unlikely set of characteristics, I've often thought about how God might use me.  Mostly, I come up blank.  I wanted to share this thought with you.