Anniversaries are wonderful times to celebrate. But they are also opportunities for reflection, chances to retrospectively see how God worked and find encouragement and wisdom for the future. This April marks 10 amazing years since Knowing God Ministries (KGM) was launched. And while we celebrate the ministry and all of you who have joined in the journey, go back with me for a moment to more than a decade ago – to the beginning and the nudge.

It was 2006 when God first nudged me to publish my homemade prayer journal. In my quiet times, I repeatedly sensed Him saying that He’d feed a multitude with my five loaves and two fish. I wasn’t convinced. I was hesitant to let those closest to me read my writings not to mention I did not consider myself a writer. Why would He call someone like me to publish? And could a homespun journal really help others in their prayer lives?

After months of disobedience and wrestling through faithlessness and fear, I began putting one foot in front of the other. Almost a year later, in May 2007, I finished the process. I had self-published my prayer journal.

I remember just prior to Mother’s Day weekend when 2500 journals arrived at my home. Fear filled my overwhelmed heart. Was I crazy? Had I heard God correctly?

Putting as many journals as could fit into my car’s trunk, I took them to the only place I knew – my kids’ preschool. Feeling completely insecure, I showed the journals to a few moms, expecting the usual platitudes and that I would leave with my trunk as full as when I arrived. To my amazement, I sold over half the journals in my trunk that day.

Shortly after, women’s ministry leaders began calling to ask if I’d speak on prayer. I soon sold all the journals and had to order more.

My self-publishing “experiment” had succeeded, and I was comfortable. But God wasn’t done with His nudges. Over the next few years, I was led to write a Bible study to help women develop and establish a quiet and prayer time with God. God kept assuring my insecure heart that ‘He is able to make all grace abound to me. That in all things, at all times, having all that I need, I would abound in every good work.’ (2 Cor. 9:8)

I kept leaning on and trusting the Spirit’s guidance. I had no other choice; I was completely out of my league! But God was faithful at every turn. He allowed me to ‘hear the voice behind me say, this is the way, walk in it.’ (Isaiah 30:21) Just as He had given Noah a blueprint for building the ark, He was giving me a blueprint for my next steps.

My blueprint’s next step involved a friend and advisor who encouraged me to turn the work I had done to date into a nonprofit. An accountant by trade, Dina began the process of establishing the business foundation for what would eventually become Knowing God Ministries.

As usual, the Lord reassured my doubting heart when this verse in Proverbs jumped off the page one day: “She considers a field and buys it, out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.” (Proverbs 31:16) It addressed my exact thought at the time that was “Are we in Your will, God?”

This time I knew God was using Dina to nudge me to start a nonprofit, or in other words, plant a vineyard.

In 2011, that vineyard received a name. I didn’t name it. It was the Voice that had been behind me all along…the same one directing me from the beginning who gave me the name of Knowing God Ministries. We were to be a ministry helping women know God through His Word. Our mission was to proclaim, wherever God allowed us to share, that these words [the Bible] are not just idle words, but they are to be our very life. (Deut. 32:46-47). Teach women to love, revere, and obey God’s Word is what I kept sensing.

The mission was clear, and we haven’t looked back. Ten years later, I stand amazed at all God has done.

Celebrate with me as this video looks back at an incredible decade of God’s favor and work through KGM.

Thank you for the privilege of serving you and for your support and prayers. Onward for another decade!