By Heidi Nelson

The summer of 2013 was for us a season filled with all the excitement and joy of wedding planning for our September 1st wedding. While so many wonderful thoughts swirled in my head about being married to my best friend and the journey God had prepared, for some reason I remember also having this thought that our journey together probably wouldn’t include traveling.

During our single years, God had given both Jon and I opportunities to participate in overseas missions. Jon spent almost a year in Brazil, and I spent one summer in Israel and another summer in South Africa. I’m so thankful for those seasons how those opportunities and several other short-term experiences in other countries helped mold and shape us.

A few months after our wedding, and we found ourselves in Israel for a few days with my dad. We met a family with young kids. Getting to know them sparked a new wavelength in our minds of intergenerational ministry.

In 2017 we had an opportunity to travel to Cuba with Journey Missions. Our oldest, Jeremiah was 7 months old. We were so amazed at how many doors opened into spiritual conversations simply because we had a baby with us. God also taught us that He has perfect timing. Had Jeremiah been born on our timetable, he would have been a different age and those conversations would have been different. God has a plan to work in and through each of us, from when we are babies until we take our final breath.

Jon has led many teams through Journey Missions. We have four kids now so typically I stay home with the kids. But last month we were all blessed to travel to Brazil together. The way you see the world when you travel as a mom versus traveling as a single person is very different. Seeing through my kids’ eyes and having a front row seat to the processing in their hearts is a huge blessing. The conversations continue at home as the impact of all the experiences presses in deeper and deeper.

I came home from Brazil with such a reminder to pray for missionary wives. Their lives are full of all the daily wife/mom/grandma things, including ministry service, all while done in the context of another language and culture. God is doing great things through them, and they need our daily prayers for God’s supernatural strength to continue to move through them.

God really uses whatever stage you are at in life to relate to others. As a mom, I can relate to others in a way that would be different at another stage of life. On our travels home, we had an opportunity to talk with a lady because of one of our kids. We were able to pray with her and share the gospel with her.

Sometimes as a mom with little kids I fall into the feeling that “I don’t have anything to give.” But I believe that in every season of life, we are called to engage with the world around us. The more tired or weary we feel, the more God’s power is able to freely work through us. The opportunities may seem small and simple, but I’m reminded to make the most of opportunities to talk with another mom at the park, a neighbor walking by my yard, the nurse at the clinic, or the Costco clerk. He wants us to be faithful through our service as Sunday school teachers, Bible study leaders, and discipleship mentors.

When we’re willing to give God the little time we feel we have, He multiplies that time in big ways for His kingdom purposes. So where is God leading each of us today that we will need to depend on His supernatural strength to move beyond what we can imagine our own energies to accomplish? Whether we’re single, married, young, or “seasoned”, God has put you in this day on purpose. Let’s step out in faith, take that first step, and then allow His Spirit to move in ways that are beyond our greatest imagination.