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<\/a><\/p>\nIt doesn\u2019t always feel like a great cost to me, personally, to disciple other women\u2014one of my strengths on the Strengthsfinder test (which I recommend!) is \u201cDeveloper.\u201d I enjoy helping others develop, grow, and live out of a place of vibrancy and health in their relationship with God. Meeting with women on a regular basis, asking them questions, challenging them, encouraging them in their walk with God\u2014these are things I love. So it does not feel like a \u201cforfeit\u201d as much as other things in my relationship with God. But it is a cost. People are messy. I\u2019m messy. Very messy. Bring two messy lives together regularly and there will be more to work through, more to grow in. This is where the cost comes in. Women need to talk when I don\u2019t think I have the time to talk. Women want to get together when I don\u2019t feel like having my schedule interrupted. Women need help with things that I\u2019m not good at, things that take time and energy from me. These women\u2014women I love and care about\u2014they don\u2019t live on my schedule. They have different relational needs than I do. They require sacrifice.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m nearly six months pregnant with our first child\u2014a little girl who is coming in May. We couldn\u2019t be more excited and, to be honest, I already feel a little mystified about how parenting will work. I have seen the transition in the lives of some of my best friends\u2014I know that my life will change, drastically and dramatically, forever. Children are the most intimate disciples any person can have. They live with you day in and day out, they see you at your worst and best. They know how you really live.<\/p>\n
I think about my daughter, about who she will be and how she will respond to God\u2014and my heart is to be a mother who disciples her well. I want to be a mother who understands the messiness that she and I both bring to the table. I want to respond to her need for time and conversation and help when she interrupts my life\u2014which she will do, beautifully, starting in May and then every day afterwards. Her life will be one giant interruption into my own. But if I will respond like Jesus, I think I will experience that interruption is an opportunity for life, true life. Because all life requires sacrifice. I see this with the women I disciple\u2014if I allow my life to be interrupted by theirs, we both grow in our love for God and one another. The cost is followed by unexpected reward.<\/p>\n
Life requires sacrifice\u2014Jesus knew this best of all. If I am to follow him, to let my life be forfeited for His, to let my life be swallowed up by Life, this is one of the many lessons. The interruptions of discipleship, of parenting, of living, are some of the pathways to this fuller life\u2014a life lived not for myself, but for the One who is Life itself.\u00a0 One of the values of our church is discipleship. In the scriptures, we see that Jesus was intentional about his relationships with the twelve, and as he was leaving earth, his command to his followers is that \u201cAll authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,4,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forfeited-life","category-god","category-ministry","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":173,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions\/173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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