Every prophet of God must submit to thr refining fire of failure to be fit for the task of ministry. In my case, God’s tools of my refinement were rejection and failure.
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Even though I was certainly spiritually abused as a pastor and an evangelist for more than two decades, I did not desire to “come out of her.” In fact, I was literally driven out of a well-known African
American denominational church. In Come Out of Her, God’s People,” I really don’t reveal the details of my pastorate at two denominational churches. As I recollect, they were the years of my life when I felt most unloved and most unappreciated. The persecution that I endured at St. Matthew, Norwich NY and Dyer Phelps, Saratoga NY would take up too much time, and it really would do little to enhance this testimony. Simply put, I will sum up those horrible years by simply proclaiming that throughout my pastoral service and evangelistic labor in this particular denomination, it was the divine hand of God Who purposely set me up to be unsuccessful. For knowing myself as I do, if I had been successful in works of the flesh, I would be wretched, poor, blind and naked in my powerless comfort zone of denominational acquiescence.
Suffice it to say for now, that through three pastorates over a 25 year span, I submitted myself to the cross of the Savior, picked it up and followed Him. Now that I have been informed as to why I was sent not once but twice to the Denominational church, I now know why the Lord Himself allowed Satan to set me up to fail as one of Zion’s pastors. In this hour, I now realize that the circumstances that under girded each failure are not as important to my testimony as the recorded events in the book.
In fact, I believe that my failures in the denominational pastorate were definitely used by the Lord to renew my soul. In this regard, I learned to understand the hidden worth of my failures,— an invaluable spiritual truth that “the Pam without Christ” could never have perceived without the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. In my fleshly nature I am an achiever, an assertive woman where failure is unacceptable. In fact, in my secular career, my all-male co-workers were known to admiringly describe me as a woman “with gonads.” I obtained this vivid and illustrious title because I was the only one among my peers who confronted issues in the agency that the men were either too intimidated or too fearful of reprisals to address.
Men simply do not expect or desire to acknowledge that a woman can or even should be bold and fearless. As such, when a woman stands up for truth, she must have two gonads rather than her own two breasts. In the secular world, I have never been the underdog. In fact, even though I have a soft, feminine side, in the world my natural womanhood was overshadowed by the strength of my survival instincts. Therefore, the dirt that was done to me by people who call themselves ‘Christian’, my carnal nature without Christ would have been so outraged that retaliation would definitely have been “in order!!!”
Enemies faced in the secular world knew that I had the capability of being a deadly adversary so when they came at me, they knew that they had “to come correct!” Therefore, as I look back at the weak, insecure people who the enemy used against me in the two Denominational churches that I pastored, I perceive that the Lord most assuredly used these failures to successfully cut the evil emotions of hatred, bitterness and un-forgiveness from my soul. I learned that in spite of what the sheep did to me, as a shepherd called by the Lord Jesus Christ to serve them, I could not fight them back. I could not harm or damage the Lord’s sheep.
Throughout 30 years in ministry and 35 years saved, the Lord repeatedly demonstrated to me that vengeance is His. Over the years I have watched Him repay as He allowed the plagues to overtake all of my enemies in the organized church. Consequently, although much could be written about several other professing Christians that the enemy used to try to discredit and destroy not only my ministry but the essence of my being, in “Come Out of Her, God’s People” I choose to only testify concerning those persons and situations that played a significant role in “the making of a prophet.” As I look back over 30 years of ministry, I realize that I have learned invaluable spiritual lessons and revelations by watching unto prayer. Like the prophets of old, I endured hardship like a good soldier. Sometimes hurt, almost crushed, but never destroyed. At least I didn’t get beheaded as did the prophet John the Baptist, although my spiritual head was on the chopping block more than once.
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