This is the way God works.

He is working in that hidden season, whatever that season looks like,

whether it's feeling unfruitful or feeling like it's a wasted season

or feeling like you're not using your giftings or feeling like no matter how hard you try,

there's no progress. Whatever it is, God is

actually at work in that season.

Hey, friends, welcome back to the Ruth Joe Simon's podcast. Today, I want to talk to you about a topic

that you all bring up quite a bit when I meet you

in person or when you've written me. It seems like I hit a nerve when I talk about the hidden

years. What do I mean by the hidden years? I've shared a little bit about those years in my life.

I've said some things on different podcasts.

There's a chapter about it in Now and Not Yet, a book that came out a few, two years ago.

But what I mean by the hidden years are the years in which your fruitfulness may not be on display publicly, where the work

of your days and the work of your hands and the labors and the investments and the time you

spend doing things that you feel that God's really called you to are not necessarily

seen by all. There are no metrics showing that you're making great strides.

There are years that feel potentially wasted. They are years that you're questioning whether

you're making a difference. The hidden years are the years that I describe as the season where I was not out on the forefront

of ministry. I was not publicly. I wasn't writing books. I wasn't on stage. I was cleaning up

Cheerios at my kitchen table, teaching my little children how to get along, going on walks, hoping that a baby would fall asleep.

Those were the years where we put the kids down and my husband having a fruitful ministry.

As a pastor, we would have young couples over and would do counseling late at night. But I was

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