Strength Directed: Positioning Your Life to Walk In God’s Directed Strength

By Dawn M. Pate

At seventeen, author Dawn M. Pate had big dreams. She was going to fly the open skies
and become a flight attendant; then she learned she was pregnant. After a second
unplanned pregnancy, Pate realized she needed a change.
In Strength Directed, she shares her journey of her personal and ministry life, revealing
the struggles and circumstances she encountered and the outcome that could only have
been orchestrated and allowed by God. Pate offers a background of her life and tells
how she became a Pregnancy Care Center director, overseeing the ministry to more than
50,000 girls in crisis and leading hundreds of volunteers in ministry service throughout a
twenty-one-year tenure.
CAN YOU SEE THE PIECES OF YOUR OWN LIFE’S PUZZLE WORKING ALL
TOGETHER REVEALING YOUR UNIQUE STORY?
STRENGTH DIRECTED will help guide and uplift you on your spiritual walk, a journey
that will help position your life to walk in the fullness of God’s directed strength.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jan 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483424460

Book preview

Florida

STRENGTH

Directed

Positioning Your Life to Walk in God’s Directed Strength

DAWN M. PATE

Copyright © 2015 Dawn M. Pate.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-312-52628-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-2446-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015900645

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 01/13/2015

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: S-Stepping Back

A Country Girl at Heart

Forever Changed

Lesson Not Learned

A New Dawn

Filling The Void

Chapter 2: T-The Call of God

Called to Serve

The New Journey

A Direct Healing

Walking Her Home

Chapter 3: R-Real Work in Real Time

Our First Client

The Answer is Always The Same

Facing Her Giant

The Past Walks In

Looking For Love

Power in Prayer

Chapter 4: E-Extending Love

More than Required

A Place of Honor

An Honest Look

Chapter 5: N-Never Give Up

A Shifting Heart

Shaping a Ministry

The Tough Calls

Who’s Directing The Director?

Watch and Pray

Chapter 6: G-Going Deeper

In Losing Everything… I Gained

The Work of Empathy

Craving The Word

Learning To Trust

The Silver Thread

Journal Entries

Chapter 7: T-Take What’s Been Given’

Steps of Faith

Chapter 8: H-Hope & Exhortation

What Worked and What Didn’t

The Full Circle Life

The Most Important Thing!

Notes

A Message from Dawn!

Introduction

What a comfort to know the very One who has purposed and numbered each one of our days here on earth! We are created in the likeness and image of God Himself.

So God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.

Genesis 1:27 (NIV)

I am not on His level nor will I ever be seated on a throne in His majestic court, but I am His creation. Indeed I am His child forever because of my faith and trust in His Son, Jesus Christ-my Lord and Savior.

For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Romans 10:13 (NIV)

Knowing and understanding this truth has spiritually positioned my life with my Creator. I am no longer an alien in a foreign land. I am a joint heir with Christ. Being part of His family means that He wants the very best for me, that He loves me unconditionally and that He desires to walk with me through this sometimes difficult and trying life. He wants to lead, guide and direct me through whatever comes my way as long as I live and breathe with Him in this imperfect world.

God tells us in His word to fear not in this life for He is with us and that He will never leave nor forsake us.

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.

Isaiah 41:10 (ESV)

I think there is no greater joy to God than when His children look toward heaven with their arms outstretched before Him and say, Father, I need You! I need Your power, Your strength and Your guidance to get me through this day. I cannot make it one day without You nor would I ever want to.

Beautifully portrayed in the same way is the picture of a sweet little baby with his arms outstretched towards his mother in total and utter dependence on her for every need in his life.

God is in it with us for the long haul. Just knowing this brings such peace and contentment to my life. I have an advocate, someone who is always on my side, fighting on my behalf.

So how can we experience God’s strength in its purest form in our lives? We must learn to depend upon Him each day. We have to tap into the lines of His presence regularly, breathing in His word and talking to Him about everything. We must confess our sins and present a clean life and a pure heart before Him.

Like a shaft of light piercing through the night sky, so will God’s presence pierce through our lives positioning us to experience His strength directed toward us.

My prayer for you is that this book will be an encouragement for your spiritual walk and ministry in Christ. May you begin to sense like never before His strength and power anew, piercing into your life. God wants to use every piece of your life and work it all together for your good but more importantly for, His glory.

The pages that you read here have been taken from the actual pages of my life’s story and from the specific ministry to which He has called me. I pray the words will touch your life in whatever role God has planned for you, whether director or leader of a ministry or a called volunteer in some capacity.

Be encouraged today because His strength is made perfect in our weakness!

But He said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

2 Corinthians 12:9 (NIV)

STRENGTH Directed

He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40:29-31 (NIV)

S-Stepping Back

How we grew up and how we were raised is all part of our foundation for this life. It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor, raised in the city or in the country or even if you went to church or not, we all have things that have shaped our lives up to this point.

I want to step back a few years and show how certain circumstances in my own life led me down a road that seemed crooked and jagged at the time-a road that was filled with crazy turns all along the way.

Looking back you will begin to see the beautiful tapestry of how it all came together in a picture that can only be explained by God Himself.

My life portrays just an example of what God is doing in each of our lives and how He wants to pull our unique lives all together, and connect all the dots for Him.

Each dot when connected builds upon each other with power and momentum to carry out what it is He ultimately is trying to accomplish in us and for the greater glory of His Kingdom.

The early years were hard and stressful at times as I walked without God in my life. Looking back, even though I didn’t know Him, I knew He was there through it all, showing me that He was real and that all along the way He was drawing me unto Him through those powerful dotted moments in my life.

This is my own personal journey of God’s directed strength in my life through salvation, calling, and ministry.

STRENGTH Directed

S-Stepping Back: A Country Girl at Heart

I was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and raised on the outskirts of a little country town not far from there. I guess you can say that I am a country girl at heart.

We lived off a main road, which wound through back hills on gravel-laced roads. Living so far out in the country meant that we were the