Paige and I met several years ago when we sat next to each other at the She Speaks conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. We instantly clicked and I was thrilled that she was also from Texas! Since that time, it has been my JOY to follow her ministry out in Lubbock, Texas. I am so happy she agreed to share with y'all!
Paige currently serves as executive pastor at Church on the Rock in Lubbock, Texas where she preaches often, leads the staff, gives oversight to global missions and The New Legacy Home for Women. Paige also leads a thriving women’s ministry and co-hosts the Bloom Talks podcast, where unknown but remarkable women tell their stories of God’s faithfulness.
Tell us a little about yourself!
I love to speak to women at conferences, retreats, and at churches and people can find out more about that here. I have an awesome husband named Josh who is a true entrepreneur (he runs lots of businesses) and two adorable daughters: Selah & Haven.
I'm passionate about opening doors for others to have ah-ha revelatory moments with the Lord through Scripture. I’m a storyteller and can often be found around tables or on the stage sharing sometimes hilarious and often vulnerable stories about my life and the ways I’ve encountered Jesus.
I’m also passionate about seeing women fully step into who God says they are. I’m willing to go first (I’ve often found myself as the only woman in rooms full of men in church leadership), and my heart’s desire is to work well with men and then open the door wide for other women to share their much needed voice.
Alright, girl. Tell us a time in your life when you've had to CHOOSE TO BELIEVE GOD (even if you didn't want to).
Years ago I furious with God. I was a newlywed with a few years of married life under my belt, when I found myself really praying on behalf of my husband. Josh, my eternally optimistic partner, is an entrepreneur at heart, and had ventured out to start a hedge fund just a couple years earlier with dreams of making millions and becoming a wonder kid in the stock market world.
That dream was quickly readjusted as 9/11 occurred only one month after the launch of our new company. The stock market tanked and we thought about closing up shop, but Josh and his business partner stayed the course determined to slowly pull their fund back into a place of profit.
After 3 very tight years of surviving on my meager salary, we finally started to taste the fruit of success when an alarming phone call informed Josh that a former consultant had been arrested. It turned out that he was guilty of unscrupulous practices and now all funds ever associated with this man were under the microscope. Josh began a long process of answering questions, opening our books, and doing whatever it took to prove that our fund was above reproach.
The audits and questioning process drug on for months, so I got on my knees begging the Lord to vindicate, cover, and protect both my husband and this business. On the final decision day,
my husband found himself in Dallas while I stayed home praying in my living room.
I paced.
I prayed.
I declared.
I cried.
I believed.
Faith bloomed in my heart and I KNEW God was going to come through for us. And yet, I’ll never forget sitting on my couch as my husband called and simply said, “Well, it’s over.” It took me a second to comprehend what he meant, but then he continued to explain what his attorney said, “Boys, they are looking to make a point so your fund is being shut down. If you had money to fight this in court, I have no doubt you would win and be vindicated, but your small connection to this one man is all they need to close you down. It’s over.”
And with those words, my heart and faith were crushed. How could God do this? It was NOT fair.
My husband drove 5-hours home and after sitting on the couch together in complete shock he said he wanted to go to church. It was a Wednesday night, and our church was having a mid-week service, but I immediately responded, “I’m NOT going to church!”
“Yes,” he replied. “We are going to church.”
He won this argument, but I was not happy about the decision.
I walked into our church consumed with anger and grief. As we stood to sing, I crossed my arms and shut my lips determined God would NOT be receiving any of my praise. Standing there stone faced and broken, I began to list in my mind all of the ways God had let me down.
He was supposed to fight for us.
He was supposed to protect us.
This wasn’t fair.
As I listened to others worship and watched my husband lift his hands, I finally quieted my soul long enough to hear the gentle whisper of God’s voice. “You can trust Me.”
Four simple words. You can trust Me.
And although I still felt angry and hurt, something deep inside knew these words were true. I recounted the ways God has proven Himself faithful in my life, and I rehearsed Scriptures about His ways being different than our own.
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9
As a sign of surrender, I slowly unfolded my arms, opened my hands, and asked Him to walk us through whatever came next.
The rest of the story is a long and winding road filled with ups and downs. It’s a story littered with God moments – whispers to our hearts from the Father and caring people who spoke life to our weary souls. And step by step, we chose to trust Him. We trusted Him with our finances, our reputation, and our dreams.
And in the way that only God can do, we find ourselves today, over a decade later, with not just more than enough in our bank accounts, but more importantly, hearts fully surrendered confident in the fact that He is worthy of our trust.
As I reflect on this part of my story, two truths stand out:
God is good, not fair (by our definition).
Nowhere in Scripture does it say God is fair. He is just, He is love, and He is good. In fact, Jesus tells a parable about how a Master gave the same pay to workers who toiled all day as those who only worked an hour. It’s unfair in our mind, and yet He was good to all. (Matthew 20:1-16)
God cares more about our character than our comfort.
This statement has become almost a cliché, but I can vouch for it’s truth. God is after our hearts and our trust. He is relational, not transactional, so He allows the valleys and even the heartache because He sees the bigger picture of children learning to believe He can be trusted.