It was yet another sleepless night. Difficulty falling and staying asleep was becoming the recent norm for me. Even though it was the middle of the night, I had walked the neighborhood, taken a bath, and moved my body on my yoga mat. I had opened my scriptures once again and was on my knees pleading for peace. By this time it was the early in the morning. In just a few short hours I anticipated being sustained and set apart for my new calling.
Two weeks before I had accepted the call to serve as our next stake Relief Society president. It was a calling I never saw coming for myself. I wrestled in quiet moments with insecurities, inadequacies, worries, and fears. I’m not anything like what I expected a stake Relief Society president to be! I have never been the president of anything before! Part of me expected a phone call or e-mail from my Stake President at any moment to say that he had changed his mind or it was all somehow a joke. I felt like the completely wrong person for this calling. I’m not a “cookie cutter woman.” I worried I would mess everything up. Just when I thought I was settled with a round of this exhausting mind game, I would discover yet another layer of things to work through with my Heavenly Father. It had been a long 2 weeks! Despite the jitters and the long nights, He had made it very clear that He has been preparing me for years to serve in this capacity at this time.
This time as I prayed, He showed me something that has given me courage. Although there are multiple reasons why I have passed through fiery trials in the past decade of my life, one primary reason God allowed everything to happen was to prepare me for this very moment. It wasn’t a coincidence that God called me just 2 weeks after the announcement of ministering during the April 2018 General Conference. I will never forget that electric moment of the announcement! Although we are all learning the nuts and bolts alongside of each other, I had already been taught much about the spirit of ministering. Because of the difficult experiences from my past, it created the opportunities for me to be ministered to. I had seen, felt, and experienced ministering first-hand. I am literally the product of effective ministering; my family and I are living witnesses that it works! Ministering had been written on my heart in such a way that I could never forget what I had been taught about it. In recent years I have had fledgling experiences on the giving-end and it has been equally life-changing. Now, God needed me to help others catch this vision too.
Although there are aspects of my calling that I am still learning about, I was surprised at how quickly I have felt completely at home. My calling is to simply point others to Christ and support them as they find Him personally. Truly, it is a great privilege to serve in a leadership position at this critical transitional period! If we are to approach ministering as our Savior, we must lead it---whether we are currently serving as a leader or not. Leading it simply means we become shepherds rather than sheepherders. A shepherd walks in front of the sheep. He goes before and literally leads them. How can we expect to lead others into territory that is completely unfamiliar to us? How can we expect to help individuals find Christ when we ourselves don't know Him yet? Ministering from the inside out simply means we must find our Savior personally and constantly deepen that relationship so we can be the instrument God needs to reach His other children (see Handbook of Instruction 3.1).
This book does not focus on the nuts and bolts of what a Relief Society president, Elder’s Quorum President, Bishop, or ministering brother or sister needs to know in terms of executing the new ministering changes from a logistical standpoint. Ministering.lds.org does a wonderful job of that! It also may not answer all of your questions about specific situations or individuals in regards to ministering. Each individual and situation is different! We must go directly to God who knows, loves, and sees His children. He not only has a plan to save and exalt His children collectively, but He has a plan individually as well. Sometimes we are granted the privilege of playing a small or even critical part in that plan for one of His individual children; however, the answers will be different for what each child needs every time. That is minstering!
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