Powerful Question And Answer Session At After Amen Women Conference by Rev. Christie Bature: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

How do you discern the voice of God?

• God speaks first and surest through His word. The more scripture is in you, the easier it becomes to recognize His voice through the familiarity of what you already know
• God speaks through the voice of another, especially people you hold as authority figures, though your own spirit must be trained to tell godly counsel apart from a person's flesh or opinion
• God speaks through dreams and visions. If you forget a dream, leave it, but if you remember it, pray over it
• God speaks through your conscience, described as the candle of the Lord
• God speaks through circumstances, connecting the dots for you

She shared that when God called her, He told her she would be an itinerant minister, not a local pastor. A respected church father pressured her to start a church instead. She avoided the confrontation rather than argue, and stayed true to what God had told her.

How do you deal with guilt after past sin?

• Forgive yourself, and ask God to teach you how

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• Recognize the accuser's strategy: God has already forgiven you, but the enemy keeps reminding you so you never walk in the wholeness of your healing
• Despise shame, the way Jesus did, and tell it, "Take yourself and take a hike"

Philippians 4:8

Test the guilty thought: is it true, is it of good report? If it fails the test, stop thinking about it and replace it with another thought entirely, a law of displacement that has to be trained over time.

She compared it to the life cycle of an insect, egg to larva to pupa to adult. The enemy plants the thought of guilt as an egg; crush it early by refusing to sit with it, and speak back to the enemy out loud. If you close your mouth, you close your destiny.

How do you discover your specific calling?

Not everyone hears an audible instruction from God. She didn't know what she was called to do; she only knew she loved to sing, even after being mocked for her voice as a child. She kept singing faithfully, and over time God added teaching, preaching, and writing.

"Thou numberest my wanderings." God is measuring the wandering. Like a tapestry, the back of a life may look like a mess of threads, but God is weaving it into something beautiful from the front. Start with what you love and where you love to serve, do it diligently, and He opens up the rest.

When should a woman leave an unhealthy marriage?

• Unrepentant, repeated adultery: the first time may be a mistake, the second time is a pattern. If the person will not work on themselves, leaving may be right rather than staying exposed to repeated wounding
• Some situations carry a special grace where God specifically says to stay and fight as warfare, but even then you must protect yourself
• Emotional and psychological abuse is often worse than physical abuse, yet scripture gives no automatic exit for it. If staying, learn to live with the person without losing yourself

She shared that she stopped letting her face reveal her emotions, stopped obsessing over her husband's movements, and guarded her own joy jealously, until his efforts to provoke her stopped working. Two things are needed if you choose to stay: leverage and strategy. Without them, don't stay, because there is no reward for arriving in heaven early having abandoned an assignment. Marriage is temporary and must never be valued above eternity or above a human life.

Advice for a 47-year-old single woman

• First ask God whether marriage is actually her calling

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• There is no "positioning" needed. Scripture says God prepares the table; be consumed with serving Him and let Him finish the plan
• Stay spiritually sensitive, since there are many wolves in sheep's clothing

She wasn't looking for a husband when hers found her; she was consumed with her work. For some daughters, she said, marriage's higher purpose is not romance but redemption, a new lineage that redeems what was broken in both families.

How to know God better while juggling many responsibilities

Knowing God better comes from exposure and deliberate quiet time, even if it means sacrificing sleep. She began waking at 4:30 a.m. to pray and read her Bible before getting her children ready, and used short breaks during the day as power naps to make up for lost sleep. Redeem the time.

How do you deal with anger while staying with a cheating husband?

Choosing to stay must be an honest decision to also choose ongoing forgiveness, not a one-time act, since the anger returns and needs to be processed again each time. Direct the anger somewhere healthy rather than at innocent people. She channeled hers into writing; all of her books came out of her own journey, including one titled "The Devastation of Adultery." Cheating is not a reflection of a spouse's worth; it is usually a pattern that existed before the marriage began.

How can you help a husband heal after your affair?

You can only help him to the extent he is willing to help himself. Be supportive, ask what he needs, but not constantly. Be extremely patient, since grief is not linear and cannot be placed on a timeline. It moves between anger, bargaining, denial, and acceptance, and can move backward as easily as forward.

How can you stop feeling unqualified for your calling?

God doesn't call the qualified. If He did, Bathsheba, whose relationship with David began in adultery, would never have produced Solomon. Deborah, though a judge and military leader, was denied an office and had to operate from under a palm tree. It's your brokenness that He will use. The very sense of being a fraud can become what qualifies you to reach others who feel the same way.

How should a woman build her community?

• Find like-minded people; go where people who share your interests and calling actually gather
• Build the confidence to say hello, since shyness is not a fruit of the Spirit
• Pray specifically for God to order your steps toward the right community
• Don't be afraid to join and learn from an existing group instead of starting one alone