My hubs and I have lived in his childhood home for over twenty-three years. The house hovers on a hill over a small but vibrant lake. Decades ago, the lake was peppered with cabins and summer abodes. Today you’d be hard-pressed to find a cabin. Instead, temporary dwellings have morphed into permanent residences.

Today, when we have guests, a favorite past-time is to grab the lemonade (or wine), jump on the pontoon, and tour the lake. Folks soak up the landscape of homes and inevitably ask, “Who lives there?”

Funny, don’t you think? Oftentimes, our guests wouldn’t even know the residents if we told them. And yet, somehow, the home becomes more personal, even from a distance, when we identify who lives there.

Much of my adult faith journey has hovered around whether or not I believed that God was in my midst. I’ve never had a story of “overnight spiritual epiphanies.” Sometimes I wish I had. But God knows what is best, and so for me, my faith walk has been the slow and steady solidification of this truth––He is with me. Whatever I am dealing with, in that very moment, God is really, really there.

However, recently He’s been whispering another truth to my heart. He is not only the God who is with me at that moment––

He is Jehovah Shammah, the God Who is There.

It’s a small but earth-shattering shift.

What a gift to know that God is here. He is in this place. He’s in the middle of whatever it is we are dealing with.

But He is also there. He is in that place. He’s in the destination we have not yet reached. Some versions of scripture go so far as to say, He is “The God who lives there.”

I smile when I imagine riding through life on my figurative pontoon and the difference it makes when I look at an unknown future.

God lives there.

Suddenly, uncertainty holds no fear. My worries dissipate. I’m intimate with the One who lives in that far off place called the future. God is there.

Sisterhood Ministries (SHM) has been on one heck of a boat ride this past year. (Of course, so has the entire planet!) Those of us in leadership at SHM have wrestled with the future of this organization.

From the get-go, our conviction was that in-person gatherings were the core of who we are. Online community and online connection were never intended to be our primary focus, rather a supplement to traveling retreats.

Enter COVID. (Or as Jodie is fond of saying, “COVID is a dirty word around here… we just substitute it with “turtle”!) Turtle has thrown plenty of curveballs for plenty of peeps. Sisterhood Ministries has been no exception.

Consequently, after a tremendous amount of individual and corporate prayer, we’re taking a step back. Beginning in January of 2021, our website will be quiet for an undetermined length of time.

We’re guessing that sounds as ambiguous to you as it does to us! SO, we decided to make sure we close this post (and close this year) with what we are confident of:

Sisterhood Ministries may or may not continue, but that will never change that we have always been sisters in ministry and will always be sisters in ministry.

• Some sisters share Christ’s love through creative design like calendars that help us pray or cards that encourage another sister.
• Some teach biblical truths through written words in books and blogs.
• Some of our sister’s minister through spoken word and song.
• Some sisters encourage the peace of Christ on a yoga mat.
• We are sisters in ministry, and that is not changing.

God is there. Despite an unknown future, there is nothing more certain than the truth that God is in it. Not because we deserve it, but because that is His promise to those who seek Him and believe in Him.

The board of Sisterhood Ministries will meet quarterly in 2021 to determine what/if there is something next for this organization. We will not “do something just to do it.” We will seek His clear leading in whatever may be next. In the meantime, we will honor Him in our areas of individual ministry.

It has been an absolute privilege to journey with so many sisters online. We remember your beautiful smiles from Zoom gatherings! We can’t forget the glee of Facebook parties! Your vulnerability in your prayer requests humbled us. The words some of you wrote and shared taught us. You are the ones who have shown us what “better together” looks like, and for that, we are eternally grateful.

May you and yours have a blessed holiday season!