The Prophet is In, Just Bring Your Own Snacks

Hi, my name is Judy Roberts, and I am so pleased to be able to welcome you to my home on the web.  If you have any interest in things of a spiritual nature—and by spiritual, I mean those of the Christ-honoring kind—please feel free to stop in and visit me whenever you can.  Just a note, though:  if you were visiting with me in my brick-and-mortar home right now, I would be doing my best to make you feel more at ease by offering you some coffee or tea, and perhaps one of my homemade apple squares or killer chocolate chip cookies.  However, given the limitations imposed upon us by the nature of the web, I am sorry to have to inform you that when you visit me here in the future, you will be on your own as far as snacks are concerned.  So, let me encourage you to get those lined up before you sit down at the computer—that way, our conversations won’t suffer from quite so many interruptions (although bathroom breaks are certainly understandable).

Since you have absolutely no idea who in the world I am, I guess the best way to begin our relationship is by introducing myself to you.  The long and the short of it is this:  I am the wife of John, the mother of five sons and the grandmother of three grandsons–but most importantly, a devoted follower of Christ.  I am now “retired,” having worked for over thirty years in a Christian television ministry, first as a tailor in the wardrobe department, then as a wardrobe stylist and costumer, and finally as one of the schedulers for its busy makeup and hair department.

Although I haven’t done a single thing to merit the world’s attention—that is, I haven’t written any books, gone on any speaking tours, or even taught a Bible study on a regular basis recently—I have lived a life that has been far from boring.  That’s because I have developed a knack for being able to get into trouble, even while in a locked room all by myself.  I don’t understand how I have managed to do it because by nature, I am a quiet, introverted person—someone who tries to mind her own business and who will go to almost any length to avoid conflict or confrontation of any kind.  And yet, I have repeatedly found myself in some of the strangest predicaments that you could have imagined.  I guess that’s because, in spite of my own timid and fearful disposition, I have had to:

• Live a life of total dependence upon the Lord, never knowing when or how my needs were going to be met (when I would much rather have had the security of a regular income with all the fringe benefits that usually come with it);
• “Woman up” and learn to confront people who were out of line, even people in positions of authority, (when I would have preferred digging a hole, crawling into it, and pulling the dirt back over my head); and,
• Die, die, and die again to my own natural inclination to please others, instead choosing to please God so that I could find the voice that He had given me to use for His purposes.

Why?  So that I could be transformed from the spiritual wimp I once was into a woman of spiritual substance. Although this transformation hasn’t been an easy one–certainly all my kicking and screaming didn’t help any to speed up the process–I now realize that all of my adventures in faith have been an essential part of the training I needed, if I was ever going to be trusted to speak for God.  Now, having come to that all-important realization, I would like to share with you how God has used those experiences and the many lessons that I have learned through them, to prepare me to be what I can only describe as His most reluctant prophet.

I hope you know that the welcome mat will always be out for you here, so please feel free drop in whenever you are in my neck of the web.  Just remember to BYOS (Bring Your Own Snacks!)—and a comfy chair wouldn’t hurt either.