Do It Again: A Testimony of God’s Faithfulness

As I head to MegaCon 2018 this week, I’ve been reflecting on the past year, and all that has happened since MegaCon 2017. I attended last year during my final weeks as a full-time children’s pastor in a season of struggle. I’m attending this year from a place of joy and awe at God’s faithfulness…

2017 was a tough year. My husband and I had decided that it was time for us to move on from the church where we were both working full-time (me as the children’s pastor, him as the youth pastor). Nothing had gone wrong. There was no drama. Things were going great, in fact. But we’d been with this community and under the same leadership since middle school and felt like it was time for us to “move out of the house” if we wanted to continue to grow.

So my husband stepped down in May and started looking for youth pastor positions. I stepped down in October and had to figure out what to do next. We entered a season of unemployment, searching, and wandering. Of questions and loneliness and unknowns. Yes, moving on was our choice, but that didn’t make it any easier to go. Later that fall, my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 throat cancer and began treatments, adding another layer of grief to an already difficult time.

Throughout the wandering, I sang and prayed the song below as a cry of desperation. As a lament for what we had left behind and what we were going through, trying to remind myself over and over again of God’s faithfulness. Speaking the confidence I didn’t feel but knowing I needed to hear it anyway. We were “waiting for change to come” and trying to remind ourselves that “the night won’t last.” I’d seen God move the mountains before, and I held onto the hope that I would see Him do it again.

Since this time last year, God has turned my lament into a love song. My husband is serving as the full-time youth pastor at a new church that is a great fit for us. (And we still have solid relationships/friendships at our previous church since we ended up only 30 minutes away!) My dad has finished treatments and is cancer-free. Through the support and encouragement of so many people, I’ve started a new phase of ministry through Deeper KidMin, equipping children’s ministry leaders to grow kids deeper in their relationships with Christ.

For almost a year, “Do It Again” was an expression of grieving, struggling, and hoping. Now, standing in the results of God’s faithfulness on the other side, it is a song of praise. This past summer, we attended a Beach Camp with our new group of high school students, and Elevation Worship led worship for us that week. What a blessing it was to sing this song from a posture of worship and thankfulness for all that God has done in the last year after singing it from a place of struggle for so long. God took the same song with the same lyrics and used it speak to my heart in both the waiting and the fulfillment. In just one year, this song was both a fervent prayer and an answered prayer.

We sang it during our trials & wandering, and through God’s blessings, it has become our anthem of worship. His promises still stand, and great is His faithfulness. We are still in God’s hands, and our confidence is that He has never failed us. God made a way when there was no way, and I believe I’ll see Him do it again.