If I Had Only 40 Minutes, What Would I Tell Single Moms
For the past eleven years, I’ve had the immense joy to be the Friday night and Saturday afternoon keynote speaker for the Survive ‘N’ Thrive conference. WOW! What a privilege and responsibility. Every year I ask the Lord, “Father, what should I say?” And every time, it all boils down to one word… JESUS.
I had a blast with this year’s theme: WESTERN. Yee haw! You can already imagine how my brain was flowing with ideas: boots, chaps, the ponderosa and slang like –“hog killin’ good time” and “don’t get caught in the ditch.” So what did God give me to tell my single mom friends?
One morning six months ago I was reading Psalm 37 and one phrase jumped out at me like a rattlesnake on the mountain trail. I knew it was the Holy Spirit doing what He does so well: preparing me with His conference message. Two words caught my attention:cultivate and abundance. Yes, when we till our soil, He does exceedingly and abundantly.
I looked up cultivate in Websters. It means to raise up. Who of us does not want to raise up a crop of healthy little critters? Any cowgirl knows it requires these steps:
#1 – DIG.
Yes, dig, baby dig! Before the harvest, we need to dig up the things that limit us from the Father’s best. It might be unbelief that God is good or living with a boyfriend or not yielding our life to Christ. What ungodly root needs be “plum yanked out” of your foundation? (I had a few to pull up myself!)
#2 – PLANT.
Where in the world do we start here? Psalm 37 gives the key: commit your way to Him. The Greek word for commit means to “roll over.” I wonder if we’ve “rolled over” our anxieties and dreams to the One who holds all the governments of the world on His shoulder?
#3 – FERTILIZE.
Crops are made more fertile by adding suitable substances. There’s nothing more valuable to a single mom than fertilizing her single motherhood beside the campfire of holy Scripture. Dr. Talley confirmed, “The emotional energy being drained out of a mom can only be replenished through God’s Word.” Are we daily pouring biblical truth into our canteens?
#4 – EXPECT.
Here’s where it gets really exciting. God loves us! He desires to bless us just like we desire to bless our kids. He promises to do something beautiful with the scars on our boots. However, it’s often easier to focus on our problems than the possibilities. Amen?
So we get to choose: do life as usual on the home front and settle for less or saddle up with God on the blazin’ trail and settle for more. I don’t know about you, but here’s my choice: RIDE ON, GIRLFRIEND.
