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?

1. Through his word

   The more of God's word you have inside you, the easier it becomes to recognize his voice. It's the surest and first way he speaks.

2. Through the voice of another

   God can use authority figures to speak to you, but your own spirit has to be alert enough to tell the difference between godly counsel and counsel from someone's flesh.

3. Through dreams and visions

   If he can't reach you during the day, he may come at night. Don't ignore a dream you remember when you wake up, pray over it even without an interpretation.

4. Through your conscience

   The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching the inward parts. Keep your conscience sensitive to God so you can respond when he presses on it.

5. Through circumstances

   Things happen and God connects the dots.

The surest way is still the word of God. It's infallible.

How do you deal with guilt after past sin?

• Forgive yourself first, God has already forgiven you
• Recognize the accuser wants to hold you in guilt even though you're forgiven, because guilt and shame are his two main tools against believers
• Take every thought captive using Philippians 4:8, if a thought fails the test of being true, pure, and of good report, stop thinking about it

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• Displace the thought with another one, this is a trained skill, not instant
• Speak out loud against the accusation rather than just thinking it, "if you close your mouth, you will close your destiny"

When should a woman move on from an unhealthy marriage?

A first offense of adultery may be a mistake, a second time becomes a pattern. If the person is not willing to work on themselves, it is better to leave than stay exposed to disease and continual wounding. Unless God specifically says "stay" and gives you the grace for that particular warfare.

• Psychological and emotional abuse can be worse than physical abuse, but scripture doesn't give believers an automatic exit for it
• If staying, learn to live with the person without losing yourself, stop obsessing over their moods and movements, guard your own joy so they can't feed off your reaction
• You need leverage and strategy to stay safely, without those two things, don't stay

How does a 47-year-old single woman position herself for marriage?

There's no positioning. Be consumed with serving God, and he prepares the table. Psalm 23

Many marriages happen to people who weren't called to marry, and many single women are actually called to singlehood but marry to avoid feeling different, and end up burned. Watch for people who pretend to be Christian during courtship and drop the act after the wedding.

Marriage for some isn't given for romance but for redemption, to start a new lineage and redeem patterns in both families. Channel your energy into service, not into securing a husband, and let God bring someone if that's the plan.

How do you know your specific calling?

Very few people hear specific instructions or an audible voice from God. Most find their calling by doing what they're passionate about in service, and God adds dimensions over time. Psalm 56:8, "Thou numberest my wanderings", God tracks the wandering and weaves it into a tapestry, the mess on the back becomes a beautiful design in front.

Be faithful in what you love to do, and start from there.

How do you stay married to a cheating husband without carrying anger?

Choosing to stay only makes sense if you have the capacity to keep forgiving, since a "cheating husband" is present continuous, not a husband who cheated once. Make peace with the fact he isn't going to change on his own. Then decide where the anger goes so it doesn't land on your children or coworkers instead.

The cheating has nothing to do with you or what you carry, it was already there before the marriage. If you can't live with it for the rest of your life, leave.

How can you help a husband heal after your own adultery?

• You can only help him to the extent he's willing to help himself, nobody can heal for another person
• Be available and supportive, but don't ask about his healing every day
• Be patient, grief and processing pain has no timeline and isn't linear

How can you stop feeling unqualified for your calling?

Feeling like a fraud despite having backing scriptures points to a wound to your sense of value. God doesn't call the qualified. David wasn't the obvious choice among his brothers, Solomon came from a relationship that began in adultery, Deborah led as judge and military leader while her office sat under a palm tree because they wouldn't give her one.

It's your brokenness God will use to reach others who feel the same fraud. Speak it out: "I will never be good enough in my flesh, but the blood of Jesus has already given me my office."

How should a woman build her community?

1. Find people who are like-minded, go to the places where they gather rather than waiting to meet them by accident
2. Build the confidence to say hello, shyness isn't a fruit of the spirit
3. Pray for God to order your steps toward the right people
4. Don't always start something from scratch, join and learn from groups already doing what you want to do

Should a single woman pursue artificial insemination?

There's no empathy here. A child has a basic need to belong and know their identity, not just a want. A single woman conceiving by anonymous donor sperm creates a human being with a permanent gap in their soul, regardless of how much love they receive.

IVF or surrogacy within a marriage is different, there's still a father present, and surrogacy has biblical precedent with Hagar and Sarah, and Rachel's slave and Jacob. But deliberately creating a fatherless child by choice reverses God's design for family. A mother is not simply the one who births a baby, a mother is the one who stays until the child becomes. If you want to pour love out, adopt.

What about a mother trying to cut her children off from their father?

It is foolish and destructive for either parent to try to separate children from the other parent, unless there is proven abuse of the children themselves. Statistically, 85 to 95% of young men in prisons worldwide grew up without a father. Children raised by single mothers tend to carry anger rather than the "pity me" some children of single fathers show, because it wasn't the design for a woman to raise children alone.

There are four kinds of fathers who wound children: the critical dad, the boundary buster dad, the shadow dad, and the missing-in-action dad, each produces a different pattern of struggle in the children. Using children as weapons against a spouse only damages the children.

Closing word: don't let pain become illness

Three highly placed women known personally to the preacher, all deeply wounded by their husbands, internalized that pain and died of breast cancer. Do not internalize pain, process it, grieve it, then release it. You've already suffered the betrayal once, don't suffer it twice inside your own body.