Speaker: Darlene Sala | Series: Encouraging Words

One day my husband called me and said that Lisa needed a place to live for a few months.  “What do you think of inviting her to live with us?” Not one to wait long before making a decision, my husband stayed on the phone for my answer.

You need to know something else about this decision. Lisa was beautiful–a two-time winner of the Miss California competition–part of the Miss America Pageant. Harold didn’t know he had touched on an old insecurity of mine that cropped up whenever I was around beautiful women. Now the two of us were going to be living in the same house. I could just picture Lisa coming down the stairs for breakfast looking radiant while I was in my bathrobe looking like comedian Phyllis Diller. If you don’t know who Phyllis is, check out her hairstyle on the Internet!

What could I say? It would be very selfish of me to refuse just because I had an insecurity that should have been dispatched long ago. After all, we did have a spare bedroom. So with trepidation, I agreed that we would invite her to come.  It was time for me to grow up.

You can probably guess that the ending to this story is a good one. Lisa went on to help us on our Guidelines television program and to become a close friend I love spending time with whenever possible.

The Bible says, “Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). How much I would have missed if I had listened to my insecurities instead of trusting that God knew what He was doing!

            Sometimes it’s scary when God asks us to do something outside our comfort zone. But He knows better than we do what we need. Trust Him one day at a time that He is sufficient for anything He asks you to do, for our sufficiency comes from Him.