Michelle Thorne Books

Revealing You // Delivered

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Relevance

I know. It has been a while, but believe me I have some good reasons.

1. My computer quit almost the second I moved to Little Rock and had to wait for my husband to get here.
2. When my husband got here with my kids, well…in a match between writing and those guys, they win.
3. I have been thrown into the job (Pregnancy Counselor) and, as my Director says, baptized by fire. It’s been busy and a steep learning curve. My team is amazing, couldn’t have hand picked better co-workers, and they are so encouraging and gentle. As a bonus, I genuinely like them. I mean, I really like them, who they are, as people.
4. This is the last one, and perhaps most relevant to you as a faithful reader of mine (haha!), and it’s simply this: I have had nothing good to say. I’m not a fan of blogging just to do it. Why waste your time and mine? I’m really not that interesting and my book either interests you or it doesn’t. This blog is really more of my expression of who I am and how I continue to encounter the Lord on a daily basis.

So, why now? I guess I have something to say.

I came to Little Rock and this job with an advantage, or so I thought. I came here having experienced the journey that my clients are on—unplanned pregnancy. I thought, I have been gifted in this area. I can relate to them. I can speak into their lives.

Now, while all of that is true, I was crushed to learn that none of them care. At all. These women are at a place in their lives where they are under water, drowning. These women are stuck in paralyzing grief. These women can’t be reasoned with beyond their present situation.

And I have struggled to be relevant.

When I go with my Director to talk with pastors or business people, they all seem impressed. They all are thankful that I am there for these women. They have called me a witness and patted me on the back.

But my ministry is with these women, and I have been left wondering how I, with such a powerful and personal testimony, can make a difference for these women in the here and now.

I have discovered it is not, in anyway, helpful to tell a drowning person how you survived your own near drowning. I also cannot save anyone. Go figure!

So, what then? What am I doing here?

I have wondered that same thing, and I think, and I’m open to suggestions, I think that I get to stand there and see myself in each of these women, some more than others admittedly, and know that God pulled me out of that water, out of that grief, and He wants to do that for them too.

The pastor at my new church is on about living on mission. He talks about it all the time. My favorite part of his idea (well, not his alone, but I’ll give him credit for it here) is that it’s not a big production. It’s simple. You just live in relationship with Christ and those around you. That’s it. You just be yourself in Christ and live where you are living.

Having this truth spoken over me has answered that mysterious question for me of how I can be relevant to these women. The fact that I am a birthmother is not why/how I am relevant to these women. The fact that I am in Christ is.

I have been busy waving my I’m better flag and selling my book instead of being Christ incarnate. I have been too attached to my own redemption to dine with the Redeemer.

If my relevance includes His redemptive story played out in my life for some, that’s great. If it only looks like treading water with those who can’t get themselves out, I’m in. But for me, my relevance is found in the person of Christ, forever amen.