Say Yes, Figure It Out Later

Saturday morning, the keynote workshop presenter for the Iron Sharpens Iron conference was stuck at an airport. The organizers needed someone — now. They turned to me.

“Do you have another topic you could speak on?”

I said yes. It’s what I do often when I can fill a need—say yes, and figure out the rest later.

That’s not recklessness. That’s resourcefulness.

It’s a skill I’ve learned as a farmer’s wife, public school counselor, and teacher. Within an hour, I pulled my material together from previous messages stored on my laptop, walked into that room, and began to speak on something I care deeply about: Uncomplicated—ten values and skills still practiced in my Amish and Mennonite community, ones that were embedded in past generations and the culture desperately seeks.

But here’s what I didn’t plan for: God showed up.

And I don’t say that as a tidy, churchy phrase. I say it because there’s no other word for what happened. I had notes, a message, a framework, but I spoke from my heart. Being unprepared brought freedom. A realness. My whole self was in it. The pressure to perform was absent.

I hesitate to use the word heart, because it can feel like a word we reach for when we don’t have anything more precise. But that’s exactly what it was. My heart was in that talk — because the principles in Uncomplicated are the stake-in-the-ground plumb line for the human race as image bearers of God.

That identity—being human— is under assault — quietly, constantly, from a hundred directions. Uncomplicated is my attempt to fight back. To bring us back to center, to common sense, to community. To strip away the noise and recover what we were made to be.

I don’t speak from large stages. That’s not my preferred platform. But speaking on a big stage on Saturday reminded me that God doesn’t wait for the perfect opportunity to show up with the best of our God-given skills. He uses the airport delays and the willingness to meet a need to be resourceful with the life skills He’s given.

The message resonated with women. Every Uncomplicated book I brought sold.

So I’m here now, asking Him for the same thing in this space — a new website, a new season of life, asking that these words would carry what that room felt. The urgent need to get back to basics. To be reminded of what centered, uncomplicated, but compelling lives look like. Because there’s too much at stake not to say anything at all.

Jesus, help me to be faithful.

If this resonates with you, I’d love to hear how you have said yes before you had it figured out. That’s resourcefulness, and you’ve got more if than you know.