You will enjoy the fruits of your labor
Late one night, I took a sip of my husband’s tea. He doesn’t mind. I usually only take a sip every now and then. Sweet Tea is not my favorite thing. I have never just poured myself a glass. As I lifted the glass to my lips, God said, “You will enjoy the fruits of your labor.” I stopped for a moment and said, “Thank you, Lord. I believe You for it.”
I have been in college since before my daughter, Faith, was born in 1995. I started attending a community college on McChord Air Force Base when I was 19 as a newly 1-stripped (E-1) Airman in the US Air Force. I have been in college ever since. It took me 10 years to earn my 4-year degree. Life brought blessings and delays to my plans. As my wonderful gift, my son, Jacob, was born. Due to his diagnosis of deafness and subsequent cochlear implant and then four years of attending The Atlanta Speech School, I delayed finishing my degree as I wanted him hearing, speaking, and mainstreamed more than I wanted a 4-year degree.
Then, I earned my master's degree in counseling so that I could counsel moms and families who were going through stressful times such as ours went through. However, after completing my master's, I realized I needed to earn my doctorate degree if I really wanted to help families. This would enable me to do psychological testing and diagnose mood disorders/and or learning disorders, etc. It would also create a “one-stop-shop” for my patients. I would not have to see them and then tell them to drive somewhere else to receive more services from someone else.
As a mom, I had driven to see so many professionals, that I nearly fell apart physically from the stress. One of my goals has always been to encourage and equip families, especially moms of special needs children. 70% of marriages with a special needs child end in divorce.
My own family endured such emotional, physical, and financial stress that I wanted to help other families avoid the depth of despair that ours experienced. And now, I am in my 4th year of a 5-year doctorate program in clinical psychology. It’s been a very long, arduous road. There are not enough words to describe the long road so I won’t even try.
In 2007, God gave me the Warrior Mom ministry in the midst of my doctorate degree. He then showed me that the doctorate degree was to compliment the Warrior Mom ministry and the writing and mentoring ministry, rather than the ministry was a compliment to the doctorate degree.
You see, I had the doctorate degree and a professional practice as #1 on my list, and then the ministry came along, and I thought that was a nice piece of parsley for my plate. But God changed it around. He essential said, “The meat on your plate is writing and mentoring; the parsley is the doctorate degree.” God is so cool how He does that. You are just walking along thinking you understand the big picture and then God makes one statement that removes your picture, replaces it with His big picture, and you are left standing there looking at the new big picture in awe, scratching your head, but smiling at the refreshing prospects His picture brings.
So, the other night, as I took a sip of my husband’s tea, I was thinking how the tea was my husband’s. He brewed it. He poured it, and he brought it into the room. I nonchalantly took a sip of his tea not having partaken in the labor of creating the tea. I know most people take a sip of tea, whether it’s their tea or someone else’s, and they don’t have two thoughts about it. Welcome to my world; I think all the time… So, God, essentially, answered my thought with this statement. “You will enjoy the fruits of your labor.” God is so intimately in touch with our thoughts and our heart’s desires that it blesses me to just “think” about it. I knew there was a Bible scripture that would either say exactly or echo what He said to me:
Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in his ways. You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; you sons will be like olive shoots around your table. Thus is the man blessed who fears the Lord. May the Lord bless you from Zion all the days of your life; may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem, and my you live to see your children’s children. Psalm 128:1-6
Kristina Seymour loves to encourage and equip women through the Word and through community. She is the author of The Warrior Mom Handbook, The Warrior Mom Leadership Manual, and The Warrior Wife Handbook; they are available at Amazon.com. Kristina's Bible studies are for women who desire to live by faith in the midst of their everyday lives. She has learned that women can't survive on caffeine and animal crackers alone; women in the Word and in community are united and able to stand firm. To learn more about Kristina, please visit her website, https://kristinaseymour.com/. God loves to share His story of love and grace through us all, and Kristina believes that everyone has a story to tell.
Originally published Tuesday, 19 December 2023.
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