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International Women's Day: Steph Herring on living every day as a prayer
Major Steph Herring shares how COVID affected many of the retired officers that she serves in Central Divison, and how she was able to minister in isolation, while focusing on being 'face to face' with God. Listen as Steph shares the song that stirred her spirit of this time, and what she hopes we can take forward into the future, after this time of taking stock.
We invite you to download and share this and our other International Women's Day testimonies with your community (link below). The following is a transcript from the video:
COVID for me as an officer at the Central Division was a time for me to actually take stock of where I am in all that I do and [can] be.
I couldn't help out at the local Community Ministries because my husband is in that place of not being able to be compromised by his health. So for me, one of my roles is looking after the retired officers who have left an amazing legacy for me and for us to learn from. So I was able to spend some of the time through this COVID to phone them - and each one of them - and having a conversation around how they’re doing through this time.
Some were feeling isolated because they couldn’t get out,
and some didn’t have family around them,
some were feeling lonely
and yet others kept themselves quite busy in their homes
and some even were loving it - the quietness, they could go for a little walk around the block
and it was just so quiet and yet they loved that.
One of my other roles is Spiritual Life Development and Prayer, which is a real passion of mine. What a privileged place to be in, where I can support through prayer, resourcing officers and others - of things that could help them in their spiritual journey or people in their communities of faith.
Asking people and officers how it is going for them through this different time and finding out how they are navigating this new season we have found ourselves in. And to pray for them through this time was an amazing privilege for me. I learned the art of living in his presence moment-by-moment in a more deeper way than ever before.
I'm trying to pass that on to others and trying to explain what that means, by ‘living in the presence of God moment-by-moment’. That our whole lives can be a total prayer in all that we do, say and think.
A song which blessed me over this time which I played often as I was out walking up the
Mount Victoria Hill was called ‘So Will I’ and a lot of you may know this:
‘And as you speak,
A hundred billion creatures catch your breath
Evolving in pursuit of what you said…
If it all reveals your nature so will I
I can see your heart in everything you say
Every painted sky a canvas of your grace
If creation still obeys, so will I.’
And my prayer is that we will never go back to who we were before this time, because I believe that God made a difference in our lives over this time. To take a step back and to reevaluate where we are in God.
We're celebrating International Women's Day by sharing women's testimonies of leadership during COVID in New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa Territory. We will be releasing new videos daily, and joining a worldwide video montage on The Salvation Army International Social Justice Commission's Facebook Page on March 8th. We invite you to share and view these stories with your community, to amplify their voices!
- CHECK OUT the other Salvationist Stories here (updated daily)
- VIEW the videos on Youtube (captions available)
- VIEW and SHARE from our Facebook Page
- DOWNLOAD the video files from OneDrive
Posted by Salvation Army Women's Ministries on Tuesday, March 2, 2021