I am happy to introduce you!
Until this past summer, neither had I. On our annual Summer Beach Project this summer, everyone read the biography of Barbara's husband, Frank. Frank is a PCA pastor from Birmingham AL, the PCA pastor that is responsible for starting Campus Outreach. For us, full-time employees and stateside missionaries for this organization, reading about them was very exciting. Clint and I spent time many nights reading aloud the biography of this wild pilot turned pastor. We were enamored with the stories of amazing faith, huge prayers, and abundant grace the Lord seemed to pour out on this man and wife.
A few days ago, Frank and Barbara joined us in DC to speak to our students. They told the story of how Campus Outreach got its start, and pricked the hearts of hundreds of college students who are now asking “Could the Lord use me to do something like that?” We pray that the answer is yes.
It was this place, the New Years Conference (then held in Atlanta), that Clint and I both had intimate interactions with the Lord over what He could do in our lives. It was this conference (and John Piper) that kept Clint from transferring colleges to play football, which eventually led to our meeting (thank you, Mr. Piper!). It was here that I first got a glimpse of what walking with the Lord in community looked like. A glimpse that eventually led me to transfer schools to be discipled. That move changed my life. The Lord really uses this time. He has uniquely blessed it. And we are thankful.
But, back to Barbara. Yesterday, all of the staff wives had a chance to meet with Mrs. Barker to talk about how she has managed life, ministry, children (3 in 2 1/2 years!), and being a man in ministry’s wife. She proceeded to tell us her story. Most of it, I was on the verge of tears. Partly because I felt understood, partly because I found great hope for my life in her words. When Barbara was 25, she had given up a ballet career to marry the man she loved. She was not a Christian at the time. In that season, he became a Christian, and broke up with her. She tried to commit suicide. In her recovery, her sister led her to Christ. She spent 4 years honeymooning with the Lord only to move back to Birmingham and marry that very same man.
But that man, let her down. She put her hope in her marriage, and he loved his church. She became resentful and hopeless. One day while her 3 babies were sleeping she cried out to the Lord. In her distress this verse came to her “for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that could hold no water”. She says that that day, her life changed. She repented of her infidelity to the Lord in her heart, and began a new life of looking to Him to satisfy her needs and loving her husband out of the overflow.
Now, why does this give me great hope? I am 25 years old. Jesus has been my Lord now for 7 years. I am very young in my faith, yet, I am in full-time ministry. I live with a perfectionism that whispers the lie that I must have it all together before I take a step of faith, teach anyone, or give of myself. And this woman, through a book, had become a hero to me. And now, I sit listening to the ways the Lord humbled, loved and poured out His grace to her. At my age she tried to take her life and finally gave it up to the Lord. My flesh and satan keep me from hope. I read stories about people like the Barker’s and I think “I will never be that godly, influential, etc.” Oh, but truth drowns out the lies when I hear a 73 year old (extremely godly) woman say “I have been a Christian for almost 50 years, and the same self I battled then, I battle now. But I am better.”
I have no idea what the Lord has in store for us in the next 5, 10....50 years! But I do know one thing. Barbara Barker is a testimony of the Lord’s grace. He is faithful, and He is committed to us no matter the depths of our sin and struggles. Praise the Lord for you Barbara! Thank you for your perseverance, your hope, your submission to your husband and your Lord. You can not imagine the impact you have had on countless lives. You have indeed been a messenger of the Lord’s grace to this ministry wife!
No comments:
Post a Comment