More Insight

Insight

(Dragonfly Ministries President, Mary Hamrick)

August 2004

I am late in writing this Insight.  So many things have occurred since our move to Maryland in January 2004, so many wonderful and tender touches from God in our lives, and yet I have not written.   There have been so many intimate moments to share, so many blessings from God, intimacy with friends and with God, and yet I have failed to share, as though a wall of protection has been up around my heart and my mind.  During these months, I have been cocooned away, protected from the environment, and now I feel the need to break away and to fly and to share.

The first order of business when there is a geographical distance between yourself and loved ones is to reach out and to create a new environment of friends, fellowship, relationships.  I have never had confidence in initiating friendships, always feeling insecure about my ability to be a friend, about my worthiness of having a friend.  I learned this about myself several years ago, and determined to learn how to make friends from those who initiated friendships, from ones that pulled me out of my sheltered protection, who pulled and pulled at me to bring me out of my shyness in dealing with people, particularly women.  And what I learned during the process of watching and observing was that in order to have a friend, sometimes you have to make the first move in a friendship.  For me, that’s always been hard to do.  I can’t explain why, but I’ve never felt that anyone would welcome my attempt at friendship making, and not having the self-confidence to move forward, I didn’t want to be rejected.  Enough about the past.  Let’s see how God has the ability to grow us!  Even me.

Soon after moving to Parkton, Maryland, I opened the local county newspaper and began to acquaint myself with the area.  Being away from family and friends and all things familiar, I knew that the first thing to do was to jump right into things-whether I wanted to or not!  In this particular issue, there was an article about the Moms-In-Touch-International (MITI) program in the Baltimore County area.  The article explained that Moms-In-Touch is a group of mothers of school-age children who meet weekly, for one hour each week, to pray for their children, the school, the teachers, the staff; the moms even take little care packages (acts of kindness) to the school to show their love to the teachers and staff.  The article went on to explain that every school in Baltimore County was represented by a MITI group except for the school where our youngest son, Patrick Daniel, was attending.  The local MITI group had been praying for a leader to begin a program at this last elementary school.

Immediately, I felt a tug on my heart.  “No, Lord, you can’t mean me!  I’m new here.  I’ve only been to one Moms-In-Touch meeting in my entire life!  Surely I’m misunderstanding this tug.”  And I placed the newspaper article aside and decided to pray about it for three or four days, giving God plenty of time to change His mind about this.

But He did not change His mind.  He just impressed the need heavier on my heart to call the MITI coordinator.  Four days after reading the article, I placed the call to express God’s interest in my starting a group.

The area coordinator, Bonnie, had been praying for a leader for months and my phone call was an answer to prayer --- and on the same day, she received another answer to prayer… A call from a woman named Kelly Willie, who also expressed an interest in starting a MITI group for this particular school.  

“Good”, I thought.  “Maybe God doesn’t want me to lead this group; perhaps Kelly will lead this group and I’ll bow out.”

I knew that I needed to meet people and make friends, but I was so uneasy about where to begin.  I would have been completely content to stay in my house and unpack my boxes and watch the snow fall gently on the ground as I drank my hot chocolate.  But God knew my needs so much more than I did, and He knew how to get me motivated to make new friends!  He knows the huge need that we, as women, have for girlfriends, for deep and lasting friendships, for spiritual relationships!  And His answer to me was, “My child, I want you and Kelly to work together on this, I want you to be involved.”

I met Kelly Willie for the first time to talk about starting this MITI group.  God has such a wonderful sense of humor, of timing, and of our needs!  As Kelly and I sat together and shared our hearts, I learned that she is a recording artist, a retreat speaker and singer … and as the truth of who she is began to unfold, I began to laugh out loud – Isn’t God great!  He had handpicked my first friend in our new hometown.  And He handpicked me to be her friend too – Kelly shared that she had been praying for months that God would send her a Christian friend!  I am always in awe of the way God orchestrates events and answers so many prayers along the way!  

At times I don’t understand why God is leading me to do a particular thing, but in following through with obedience, He always – ALWAYS – shows me that He has my best interest at heart.   Through MITI, I have become friends with three wonderful Christian women who have pulled me through the first six months of our lives in our new hometown - Kelly, Cathy and Marsha, and I know that He will bring other friendships through this group as well!  He is bringing me out of my cocoon of protection and teaching me how to reach out.

This month, we’re cranking up our MITI program for another school year, and I am looking forward to the new women that He will bring into our lives through this prayer group!  

If you are not a member of a Moms-In-Touch group, I encourage you to check into joining or even beginning a group.  What a wonderful way to support our children, their friends and their schools – by placing them in the hands of God through prayer.  We pray in sentence prayers for students, staff needs, and school concerns.  It’s such an intimate way to ask our Lord to work in the lives of our children and – at the same time – to share our hearts with other women with a common concern.  Who’s going to pray for our children if not us?  What better way to provide protection for them than by placing their every care and concern in the arms of the Lord!  

To learn more about Moms-In-Touch, or to find a group in your area, visit www.momsintouch.org.
 

Mary