If your husband is a speaker, the public, I found, expects you to be able to follow suit. All sorts of doors of opportunities had opened up to me as soon as I had arrived in the States simply because of Stuart’s already well-established ministry. ‘But I don’t want to speak to ladies,’ I had complained to God. He knew I never liked it when lots of women were compressed in a confined space. What a row they made, for starters.
Having learned not to be a Jonah and run away from my responsibility to speak to people that I didn’t particularly like, I had answered the invitations and gone anyway. It really doesn’t matter that I don’t like them very much, I thought. After all, they needn’t know. Just like Jonah! I marched into Nineveh (the situation I would like to have marched away from) and talked my heart out, retiring like that same angry prophet to my hill of disdain once the engagement was over. But God apparently used the messages, and I received requests to return.
Then one day I went to Memphis, Tennessee. Verla met me at the airport. She was a speaker and teacher, ran a rescue mission, talked to up-and-outers (the wealthy) and down-and outers (the poor), and was totally relaxed with both. She gave me an outsize uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my conscience the moment I saw her warm touch with the women.
We completed our meetings and she was very appreciative of my part, but everything she felt about me came right through her transparent personality. Or maybe she didn’t feel like that at all, and it was just that her whole approach and ministry served to rebuke me outright, saying louder than any verbal complaint – ‘Jill, you are technically a good speaker – but you do not love these women!’
Being with her was like hearing my slip was showing: it was a different sort of slip this time – the slip of disobedience was hanging down several inches. I knew that love was a conscious decision. I’d learned that from Mary. Also I knew, I had definitely decided against love.
The Eternal had long shown me that love was not just a feeling too big for words, for Jesus had said to His followers, ‘ A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another’ (John 13:34). I knew that a person couldn’t command a feeling. I had come to the conclusion that if love was a command, then I must be able to obey it, which took it out of the realm of emotions and into the area of actions …loving actions that would involve me in the lives of the people I didn’t ‘feel’ I even liked.
Seeing the love of God in action in Verla’s life made me want it for myself. It seemed such a simple thing to do – reverse my decision, love the ladies, and then tell the Eternal about it. He was glad to hear the news, as He had – unknown to me – thousands more women for me to meet. From that moment on, the Holy Spirit set about shedding abroad His love for them in my heart.
Frendship’s Treasures: Invite someone outside your normal friendship category to have dinner at your house, or meet her for coffee at a restaurant that will be comfortable for both of you.
“Mothers” and “Courageous Friends” are taken from “Selections From Thank You for being a Friend”, Moody USA
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