Back in 1995 the theme for the LWML Convention in Kansas City, "Live by God's Design," taught me a principle that significantly changed my Christian life.

Going to that convention was a privilege-and a miracle. Just 17 days after a 28-day hospital stay, I was walking in an LWML parade through the streets of Kansas City toward the convention center. God's design?

In November 1994 my zone elected me their zone president-a position I accepted with joy. At the same time I wondered why I had been chosen to lead our zone. I had only been an LWML member for about a year and felt there certainly were more qualified women than me.

One of the district board members became my mentor at my first meeting in early 1995, before the convention. As we discussed my concerns, she told me surely God had chosen me for my zone position and that as I prayed and trusted in Him, He would lead me through His Word down a path of God's design. That sounded like a big order!

Then came my health problem-a crisis that took me very close to heaven's door. When I was told what had happened, my first thought was, "Lord, what do you still have for me to do?"

In the days that followed my hospitalization, as I prepared for convention, the theme kept speaking to me. Was this what my mentor had meant months before?

Yes, it was. Because at that convention the theme and the speakers shared the same message: God knows the plans He has for us-to provide a hope and a future.

I couldn't understand why God had chosen me! But I did let Him lead me. In the years since that convention, I have walked several paths down the LWML highway, serving in society, zone, district and national positions. Along each step of the way, my personal motto was impacted by the theme I learned ten years before.

"Live by God's Design"-oh, how miraculously our loving Lord makes all the pieces of life fit together.

Edie Turner is a wife, mother and grandmother. She is an LWML zone officer. She and her husband, Marvin, are active members of Christ the King, Largo, FL.