Day 28 – Footprint (Patti Paine)

Leaving a Lasting Impression

A few years ago I was really struggling with my relationship with God and was questioning Him about some things I knew He had told me years earlier. I knew He had shown me a ministry where He would use me to bring healing to hurting woman. I didn’t feel like I was making an impact on our world and that time was running out. I felt I was standing still watching everyone else’s lives being used by God and that their lives had meaning and purpose. I now understand that this restlessness was God prompting me to get out of my comfort zone and to seek Him again for that earlier promise.

I had no idea how to make this move. I decided to call my dear friend, Linda. She is the woman who ministered to me when I was hurting, broken and lost. That’s when I found Jesus. I knew she knew me and that she had great wisdom and could help me sort through my feelings. She invited me to visit her in Texas where she and her husband have a prison ministry. She asked me to go into the maximum security prison and share my testimony with the female inmates. I agreed. I didn’t know that would be the first step God would use to begin a miraculous change in me and birth the ministry I had been asking for. Never would I have thought I would be part of “helping set the captives free!”

I now go back to Texas to minister to the women behind bars and watch Jesus Christ free them from there emotional prisons. I participate with a ministry at the Woman’s Prison in Raleigh and serve the ladies there. The current and most exciting opportunity is Celebrate Recovery. This is a Christ-centered 12 step ministry for all of us to work through our hurts, hang-ups and habits. I have begun, by God’s grace, to train twelve men and woman from Grace Church to lead this new ministry starting this fall. After it is established at Grace, the plan is to take it to the inmates at the Durham County Jail and hopefully, Raleigh Woman’s Prison.

I have seen lives transformed by the power of Jesus’ love. This includes my own. You see, we don’t need to be fixed before He can use us. He accepts us in our mess with all our frailty and fears. He bids to us to come because it’s never too late to change our course. All we need to do is be willing and step out of our comfort zone. He does the rest. My challenge to you is to seek God and ask Him what He desires for your life. What does He want you to do for Him? Then just take the first step and watch what happens.

It is very important to me to finish my life well. Most importantly, to leave a honorable legacy for my daughter and my step-children. I want them to know I served the Lord as I believed He asked, and that I did it with all my shortcomings and fears. I want them to know that I loved courageously and gave of myself to others, especially those in greatest need. And I want them to know I have accepted forgiveness and I have forgiven others.

You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear much fruit, and that your fruit shall remain, that whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He may give to you. John 15:16