Building Bridges & Burning Ships: Part 10
“The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” - Deuteronomy 31:8 NIV
I never saw myself continuing this story yet again. We’re talking about Burning ships & Building Bridges again, but this time I’ll pull you back out of leadership and into my personal world. I’ll never forget the week of February 21st. It was the week I burned ships, so I could learn to build bridges.
Let me take you back, I wrote a story about starting a home for teen moms and how God put it on my heart. God actually brought another young woman into my life through Tirzah to help me with that ministry.
Sadly, months before February I had to burn the ships with that ministry because it was not bearing fruit on building an actual home for teenage mothers. We gathered so many young adults - Christian & non-Christian - who flocked to events we held. Young adults from many cities. However, Jesus felt like He was not getting the center stage. At that moment, I knew it was time to burn a ship.
That was one of the hardest times to burn a ship. It does not mean I love the person I ministered with any less. Sometimes, when you care about someone, the best thing you can do is burn a ship from everything they (and you) thought was needed. When we started, we both were young and could not find leadership that we could partner with who would hold to the values of Jesus & family, while still relating to an ever-changing culture & bridge building.
This left me at a crossroads. It was stay in a ministry that was stuck or burn the ship, so I burned it. This led me to a new community where I found leadership and built bridges (more on that in part 11!). In that community, you’ll never believe what I found (stay tuned to learn more!).
In the meantime, the week of February 21st was the biggest ship I had to burn. During that time, I was living with one of my dearest friends in Racine, Wisconsin helping her remodel her house so some family members could move in. As I was burning ships left & right, God was building bridges in friendship and life for me. Together, we both discovered we had a passion for Jesus, healing through faith, an orphanage for older children, and a love for horses (though her passion for horses is out of this world!). That week I took her to hear a friend speak and we looked around to see a group of young adult broken people who did not have strong leadership and were leaning into the belief that yes, Jesus loved them, but Christian adults and the entire world hated them.
To this day, I will never understand how for almost a year, I hung out with this group. A group of well-meaning people who told everyone that the whole world needed to be evangelized. It came from a place of hurt, avoiding problems, and not fully receiving God’s grace however. Once again, I love those people but I watched them fully accept & embrace people in their sins without leaving God to do the true heart work. The people in charge had not found their own healing and this was in part because of poor leadership.
The biggest ship I had to burn was a friendship, multiple friendships. A friendship within that leadership where I had overcome the lies they were believing and that they continued to believe. There were multiple friendships I lost that week. I was in the middle of an internship and I had to burn it because there were significant issues that were being avoided that posed real risks to females. Rather than confronting the issue, the young men and leaders were coming up with every way to make everyone happy (building unnecessary bridges) than to confront the actual sin and step into the leadership men were called to. I burned the ship that I needed to be that leadership. I gave my final stand and walked away - lit the match (figuratively - I would never do that literally) and burnt the ships.
Where I had remained silent, I took a stand and stated women should be valued/cherished in the church and deserved to know their value. Men needed to also know they could be leaders. They could stand and protect women. They could be the warriors called them to be. My friend stayed up until 2:00 a.m. with me praying over that situation. In that moment, God built new friendships for me. Women who believed the same things as me. Brothers who continued to attempt to lead in a rough situation and kept me out of it. He grew a stronger relationship with my family for me and He gave me a new job in a new place.
I thought I needed to stand for females in one church and by walking away I did that. Guess what happened though? Where I burned a ship, God built a bridge. The next morning after praying with my friend and saying I will not stand for this, I woke up to a text from Yelena. That text was telling me that Tirzah Ministries received non-profit status. When I stood up for the women in one church, God gave me the ability to reach a nation through Tirzah Ministries. It is crazy how one of the hardest weeks could also lead to the biggest blessings. Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamed of being a writer and speaker. Yelena started that dream for me, then she gave me the platform.
I had to burn a lot of ships. Ones that God may bring back someday because He likes to burn ships so He can build the bridge and get the glory. In the meantime, I’ve found myself standing alone quite a bit in building bridges. However, I know God is faithful to complete what He has started.
Tirzah Ministries started with one young woman and then allowed more of us to come together and build bridges. That week started a massive ministry. It allowed me and Yelena to make things official. A friendship was solidified with a young woman who has introduced me to many teenage girls in person that crave faith. That led to one of my friends becoming engaged to a young woman who I could run with and assist with ministry to pre-teen girls in Wisconsin. That is just a small sample of God showing up when I let him build the bridge.
Stay tuned for where I talk about how God and I continued to burn ships and build bridges. He continues to have me burn out the things I thought I needed and replaced them with even better. Learn next time how what felt like “couples counseling” in the workplace allowed me to experience God’s favor & grace in teaching me new ways to build bridges in my personal life.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alycia Marie is a free-spirited wanderer learning to find roots. She currently resides in Milwaukee and serves the community of southeastern Wisconsin. You can typically find her outdoors, as long as it’s warm, hanging out with family/close friends and meeting soon-to-not-be strangers. In her spare time, she writes, drinks chai tea, and builds non-profits, homes, families, and people. Some people like to call it missions. She prefers well-digging.