BEAMS

In July 2006, my friend Tina asked me if I could come to BEAMS for just a day and help the bookkeeper with a few things in QuickBooks. Tina and I were members of the same church and before that we knew each other through our previous jobs. She was the receptionist at an accounting firm that my previous employer had founded and since retired from. In November of 2005 I had left my job of ten years for what I hoped was a much better position but which turned out to be only an avenue that God used to exit me from that job and lead me to work permanently as the BEAMS bookkeeper. What was originally supposed to be a consultation visit soon grew into a restructuring of BEAMS accounting and from that it became a calling on my life. I struggled with the decision from July until January; first I committed to a couple of weeks, then a month longer and then six months. By January I knew that I was committed to using my talents to help missionaries around the world have hardcover complete King James Bibles to give to new converts. Through the sacrificial giving of individuals and fundamental Baptists churches, BEAMS has been able to send out over 100,000 Bibles during the year 2007 at no cost to the missionaries. I must admit that this was a "promise" that I almost missed. I rejected it for months as I tried to direct my own path, the one that I had started and the one that I thought would receive approval from those around me. As I look back I thank God for His mercies, He never needed me to accomplish His work at BEAMS yet he offered it to me and then patiently waited for me to recognize that yet again He had been faithful to fulfill another promise. I had prayed for eight years that God would give me a job that I could use me talents, one that would bring joy to my life and that I would know that I was in His will. Never, and I mean never did I specifically ask Him to put me in a ministry, you see this would not have fit the mold of the job that I thought would meet with every one's approval. He still gave it to me. God is so good to His children even when we don't deserve it. I pray that I will never be as stubborn as I was for those eight years. I want to see God's plan for my life and to do that I must look up and not down at the path I am on.

In case you missed it - the path God had me on was leading me to BEAMS all along. It was no accident that I was trained as a bookkeeper by a 30 year retired CPA, that I met Tina and she was aware of my qualifications, or that God moved us from a church that we loved to Red Creek Baptist where BEAMS was supported, then that Tina took a job at BEAMS, that I had just completed a temporary position I had taken while I waited on the perfect job to come along and that Tina contacted me when they began to look for help with their accounting. There are more details that all point to God's perfect path but this post is already longer than I intended. Isaiah 55:8 reads, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD."