I recently attended a conference for Christian women, and it was one where the music marinates in your mind for a few days after, and you wish you were best friends with someone like Margaret Feinberg. Then you leave, return to your normal routine and pick up your life where you paused it for this main event. My mom and I try to attend this conference every year and each time it’s the same: I leave, take up Bible study more than I did before, and ultimately fade back into the same habits of hurry or over time develop new ones. This year was very revealing. From where I sat, I could see the deaf ministry section and the interpreters. The theme for this 2015 conference was Amazing Grace and how to “fight back with joy.” According to the Bible, Jeremiah 31:13 says, “For I will turn their mourning into joy and I will comfort them and give them joy for their sorrow.”
I watched the members of the deaf ministry and the interpreters throughout the conference. It was incredible to me how enthusiastic they were, especially when the music played. They couldn’t hear a note of the gorgeous melodies that were synchronized into passionate, evocative songs, but they could feel it all. You could just tell. They could feel it in their bones, and they danced and sang out and swayed. Their devotion to God was so apparent, it made me question the caliber of my own. And I heard everything. In fact, I looked around and noticed how many people were just standing there, hardly singing, unmoved. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the deaf ministry because they made me want what they had.
I think it’s important to make the attempt to encounter God. When we expect Him to meet us the whole way, it negates His word, and it undermines the sacrifice of Jesus. Philippians 2:1-2 says, “Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.” If anything, the conference speakers did open my eyes and heart to new perspectives; however, it was the deaf ministry who really ministered to me. They made the attempt to praise and hear God, and they did it with the enthusiasm and joy that should be in the heart of any follower of Jesus.
Blue Withens 