This path that God continues to guide me on in His name sake has provided me with the blessing of confirming His gift to me. God has taken the scales from my eyes and allowed me to see that "every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change." (James 1;17[ESV]) I have served youth, adolescents, and families since 2007 within the setting of school as Special Education Specialist. During this time, I continued to feel this pull to serve the fatherless and orphans, the ones that have been labeled "bad kids" or "there is no hope for them." I was labeled that myself due to my upbringing. As time went along, God nudged me into more of a therapeutic role and with that I began courses to become a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist serving adults with severe mental illness and serving youth who are in foster care and group homes with severe trauma leading to codependency (substance use and mental health). Then, in 2018, I submitted and surrendered myself FULLY to God and accepted and acknowledged that Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ gave His life for atonement. With this transformation, God delivered His Word to me, "Now you are ready". With this enlightened Word God gave to me, God truly enhanced my gift to be able to connect to individuals' pain and suffering. To see the root and strongholds. To see the "why" of being entangled in traps and snares from the world and from within themselves. God commanded me, not asked me, but firmly told me to increase my knowledge in Him through ministry school and combine psychology with spirituality and use God's Word as the modality. God did not present Himself immediately when I started the Youth and Family Ministry program. He was silent. This increased me to seek His face more and call upon the Holy Spirit to guide me for ministry that was above my paygrade. When settling in and relying on His Word, believing and receiving His promise that He is ordering my steps, God placed His hand on my shoulder one evening in prayer and let me know, "I AM here..." Serving at a government entity often poses challenges for many who do not like "religion" discussed or mentioned, especially in a setting where I am coordinating services, providing linkage to resources, and being involved in facilitating meetings with all agencies who are involved with the youth I serve. My response to that is I do not have a "religion", I serve a God whom I love with all of me and living as His Son Christ Jesus has told me to live.

 

This very approach of staying firm in God during every step in my walk. Using the knowledge of understanding of mental illness and surrounding that with the Holy Spirit enhanced my ability to serve youth, adolescents, families, marital couples, and the homeless community in a manner not of this world. God found me worthy, God found me in favor of serving His children, His broken and shattered children, His children in dysfunctional families, His children who are loved for the check that comes with "housing them" with others who do not have their best interest in mind. God invested His love into me, His knowledge and wisdom into me, His grace and mercy into me, His Spirit into me. I make it a point to choose to not have a choice other than to serve God. With this, when putting on the armor of God's light, every moment I serve, God gives me the know-how to serve those who I have been blessed to have put into their lives. To meet them where they are at and by using the language of Scripture, the language of the Gospels, this affords me the opportunity to sow seed into those whom I have been honored and privileged to serve by God's loving grace. The youth whom I serve have behaviors that have many running from them. With God's gift, I have been given the grace to see their hearts, to see their core, to see the "why". This same very gift translate to ALL of God's children I serve. With this gift, using only God's Word as solutions has been truly a blessing for the Holy Spirit is presence in those moments when the individual whom I have been blessed by God to serve are at the end of the rope and hope is blowing away like dust in the wind. Everyday my eyes open, I thank the LORD for another day to be part of His creation, thank the LORD for the ability to serve those whom I have been commanded to serve. I thank the LORD for giving me purpose in His Will and Way to serve His Kingdom on earth as in Heaven. My background of life is a back ground littered with violence, littered with deceit, littered with manipulation, littered with infidelity, littered with unwholesome talk, littered with enduring physical and sexual abuse, littered with HATE, BUT GOD.....God found me worthy, found me in favor, found purpose of my pain and suffering...found purpose in understanding the language of those who have been hurt...I serve because God served me...

 

May God's grace fall upon you delivering His purpose to you as you open up to receive.

What's your gift and purpose from God?

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Blessings in Christ,

Anthonie Etienne

 

"The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the Lord upholds him with His hand"

Psalm 37:23-24 NKJV