Watching - Part 3: Revealed

"Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs. Many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem were also there."

Mark 15:40-41

In the quiet place of my soul, I saw it. I saw me. That was me...a watching woman. Not at the crucifixion, but at the display of life going on all around me. Life that everyone else was living. Life that I wanted to live.

See, I was so tied up with life and responsibilities and discontentment that I was upset (jealous? envious?) that I could not be the one doing the ministry. I felt like I could only sit on the sidelines and really, I was feeling left out and "less than". I fought God hard on my purpose and my gifting and my desires, things I felt he had put in me yet I was powerless to act on. I felt like everyone else was doing what I wanted to do - ministry that I wanted to do, teaching what I wanted to teach, leading where I wanted to lead, learning what I wanted to learn, and I was frustrated. I was also embarrassed because I felt I was letting people down, that I wasn't holding up my end of the bargain, or living up to expectations (even if they were only my expectations!). I was feeling on the outside of something great.

That was just it. Something great was going on.

When I read Mark 15:40,  I realized that I wasn't left out, nor was I less than. I was doing exactly what I was supposed to do and where I was supposed to do it.

I was a watching woman and I was watching something great.

Who were these women at the cross that were watching from a distance, watching what was the greatest act of love ever given? "Mary Magdalene, Mary the Mother of James the younger and Joses, and Salome. In Galilee these women had followed [Jesus] and cared for his needs". They were women who had walked with Jesus and who served alongside him. They knew him. They laughed with him, ate with him, cried with him, talked with him. They were with him. They had been with him for the last few years, and now they had to stand at a distance and watch. How hard and painful must that have been for these caring women, these women who loved him, to sit outside of this massive event and just watch? It is hard to stand back and watch, especially to watch from a distance and know you are helpless to intervene.

That's how I felt. I was watching all these people and things going on around me that I wished I could be part of. Yet God had me doing something else. It was important for me to be a watching woman and to realize I was watching something great. I watched my friends love on people. I watched them learn wonderful truths about God and about themselves. I watched them dream, birth and launch new ministries. I watched them grow in and use their gifting. I watched them support and walk with friends through some really tough situations. I watched them draw in the lonely, providing food and love and truth. I had the privilege of watching God at work through his people. People who were broken and hurting and imperfect and striving and learning and loving because this is what God called them to do.

When I accepted my role as a watching woman, I gave up my discontentment and I rejoiced in the goodness of God that I was seeing. I was able to "throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles..to run with perseverance the race marked out for [me]" (Heb 12:1).

Because God told me it is good to be a watching woman. I don't always have to be a doing woman. It was so humbling to realize (remember?!) that I can watch and that is good. There is learning in the watching. By always being the doing woman with the ideas or the actions to get things done, I am robbing others of using their gifts. God had me out of the ministry I loved, on to the sidelines, and I watched other people bless and be blessed.

It pained me, truly it did, to feel disengaged from my church family, from my partners in ministry, from my fellow ministry wives. I wanted nothing more than to connect deeply with each of you and couldn't understand why that wasn't easier, why that wasn't happening. I couldn't understand why God had me doing what I never thought I'd be doing. I was having a hard time reconciling where God had me with where I thought I should be. The beauty that my soul now rests in is this:

God had me watching for a purpose, I have to believe that he had you doing

 (or maybe watching too?) for a purpose. 

It isn't about me and you. It's about God IN me and about God IN you. I am so thankful to have watched each of you serve and work and grow, through laughter and tears. I am thankful to have been part of some of that.

I am content to continue to be a watching woman for as long as God has me here. These watching women at the cross intrigue me. If I am "one of them", what does that mean?