On the way back from Gainesville, GA, I stopped to spend some time with a friend in Pelham, GA. He and I are able to talk very openly and honestly. He has been special to me because he doesn’t give me any of the spiritual platitudes and often reminds me that he knows nothing of what I must be going through.

We were talking about the void left from Christopher passing. I described it as if my purpose were a pie, I have lost about three quarters of it. Now, Christopher was still living at home and as such, was more of a focus than he would have been down the road. I feel the need clarify that I don’t think that this means that he was ahead of God~who gave me Christopher to care for. This was my calling for the season that he was at home with me.

Trying to fill that void has been my challenge. Not so my a challenge, but an obsession. As I told Craig, there has to be something really significant that will fill the purpose I felt in being Christopher’s mom.

I subscribe to an e-mail devotional that is put out by the Navigators. Some days just reading the short devotional is the best I can do. Today, I actually read the scripture (it was short!). Exodus 9:13-16 is one of those places where God tells Moses to go to Pharaoh and tells Moses exactly what to say. I felt as though God sent the Holy Spirit to me with these words:

• This time I am going to strike you and your servants and your people with the full force of my power so you’ll get it into your head that there’s no one like me anywhere in all the Earth. . . . But for one reason only I’ve kept you on your feet: To make you recognize my power so that my reputation spreads in all the Earth.

This is the big purpose that I as looking for: to spread God’s reputation in all the earth. Before I can do that, however, I need to get it into my own head that there is no one like God anywhere in all the earth. And I need to recognized His power. The reason that I need to know God and his power is so that I will rely on Him. That is the only way that I can have a role in ensuring His reputation spreads in all the earth.

I particularly appreciate this passage this day because much of the last week has been spent talking out my vision with my dear friend Lisa. I feel called to work with meeting the felt needs of people who live in the community my church is called to serve. I don’t feel particularly called to “evangelize”, but rather to serve. For me, living and serving like Jesus would do will spread God’s reputation. He can take it from there!

Thanks be to God that it is His job to convert the lost. I am just called to love – thereby spreading His reputation.