'The 99 Masterclass' - personal testimony

My name is Maria Geerdes. I am a wife, mother, and financial advisor with Edward Jones. My husband is Landen Geerdes and we have two girls, Hannah (4) and Hailey. Several years ago, I led a bible study with a group of young women, but I stopped when life got "too busy" with kids. Last year it started to weigh on me. I kept thinking that I needed to make God a priority again, that I needed to get back into a bible study, but I was struggling with how to make it happen. I had been going back and forth about either starting a new study on my own or joining an existing one, when Missy called and asked if I would like to a part of a new pilot program study, called 'The 99 Masterclass.' I didn’t realize it then, but that call was God answering my struggles.

I certainly have a long way to go in my faith journey and many times I still feel like I am unworthy and not strong enough in my faith. I find myself thinking that there must be someone else more equipped to complete the task that God is calling me to do. The most challenging part was (and is) accepting the fact that God calls us as we are and having faith that, when we listen and obey, He will provide us with the tools we need and the words to say.

When I walked into the first several classes, I wondered why Missy had called me. I felt like everyone else was so much farther ahead in their faith journey than I was. I was still working on figuring out daily prayer and, from the outside, it felt like everyone else was already a theologian! I quickly learned that everyone in the room felt the same way. The conversations we had over the following months allowed us all to grow together and helped me realize that I wasn’t alone in my struggles.

I would just remind you that you are good enough, just the way you are today, not tomorrow. You don’t need to have it all figured out. You don’t have to be perfect. God knows exactly where you and I are at with our faith, and he calls us anyways. The encouragement I tell myself, my family, and everyone would be to start with daily prayer. I trust that if we are simply willing to make the time to pray and listen, that God will guide us through the rest.