What Are Your Spiritual Gifts
and God’s Will for Your Life?
How I came to know God’s will for my life
and the spiritual gifts I’d been given.
As a professional writer, I’ve documented my entire life in letters, journal notes, emails, and in various articles and books. In my “Testimony for Christ,” I explain how God awakened me to my need for salvation by using the radio to communicate with me, so it was only natural for me to tell the story of my coming to Christ so late in life and how this dramatic experience changed my life forever. I regret not including the exact date I was born again, but this experience was so overwhelming that it didn’t occur to me to do that. However, it happened late in November 1994, and when I started my “Walk with Christ” journal in January 1995, I did include dates.
Below, I’ve shared a few journal entries to illustrate how I came to know God’s will for my life and the spiritual gifts I’d been given.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come; The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV).
Knowing God’s Will for My Life
February 15, 1995: Last night, I read a booklet on how to know God’s will for my life. It stressed the importance of listening for God’s messages. So I prayed before going to bed that God would let me know what he wanted me to do with the rest of my life. Awakened at 4 am, I knew He wanted me to turn on the radio, which was already set to WYLL, Chicago’s 24-hour Christian station. For weeks, God had been waking me up at specific times in the middle of the night so I would hear the answer to something I had prayed about. This time it was a sermon by Chuck Swindoll that emphasized the importance of not waiting until you’re old to do God's work. At the end of this sermon I fell asleep with the earphone still in my ear. Precisely at 6:30, I was awakened again so I could hear Greg Laurie’s sermon on how to know God’s will and recognize the gifts he has given us.
Understanding My Spiritual Gifts
I learned that Mother had the special gift of giving, and my sisters and I had it too because it’s our nature to be helpful to others. I also learned that I have the gift of teaching and exhortation, which translates to being a motivational teacher. I don’t have to preach the Gospel to reach people, all I have to do is continue to be myself, share what I’m learning in life, and motivate others to follow in my footsteps by turning to God and Jesus Christ.
I remain astonished by how my questions continue to be answered daily on the radio. I feel like I’ve got a direct line to God!
It took me a while to realize that I had been using my special gifts for many years before I came to Christ, because by 1995, I had been publishing my home-business newsletters, had several books in print, and was speaking across America and Canada about how to start, manage, and diversify a home-based business. So don’t be surprised if the spiritual gifts we are given when we’re born again aren’t the same things we’ve been doing all our lives. That’s because God always had a plan for our lives, even before we were walking with Christ, and he was “setting us up” to eventually use our special gifts for His purposes in sharing our faith and the Gospel with as many as possible.
“For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully” (Romans 12:4–8 NIV).
Sharing My Faith
March 16, 1995: I've recently sent thank-you letters and my testimony to some ministries that are helping me in my walk of faith, including Dr. Kennedy at Coral Ridge Ministries and Dr. Dobson at Focus on the Family. David Rice, assistant to Dr. Kennedy, sent me a lovely personal letter saying: “We have prayed for you and your walk with the Lord here at CRM today, and trust the Lord will make His presence known to you in a very powerful way. God bless you as you continue to look to Him for your answers and your peace of mind.”
The response from Dr. Dobson’s ministry was astonishing. I received a two-page personal letter from his correspondence assistant Karen Booker, who wrote:
“We are so glad to hear that you have recently made a commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior! What better, more important news could we possibly receive? Nothing excites us more. We’re eager to support you in your new walk with Christ, and prayer seems the most logical place to begin. This week when our staff gathers for devotions we will lift you up before the Lord, asking Him to increase your faith and to perfect the good work He has begun in you” (Philippians 1:6).
April 23, 1995: In one of my prayers, I told God that if he wanted me to write a book on the power of prayer, to let me know by sending some Christians into my life. He began to do that at once. Last week, he sent me two more: two people in the home-schooling industry, which is almost all Christians. Both sent new dealer orders for my books, and because one business was named The Christian Post, I picked up the phone today to get acquainted with Donna Kempf. It took only moments for me to tell her I was a born-again Christian, and I told her briefly how I’d been saved, and she responded joyfully. She added that she knew from some things I’d said in Homemade Money that I wasn't a Christian, and this bothered me, so I asked her to let me know what those things were so I could change them in the next edition.
I soon learned what those things were and realized that God let me have so much success because He was positioning me to be an influence on many once I proclaimed my faith publicly. Thus the next edition of my book did that in a way my publisher’s editor couldn’t prevent, and thereafter I shared my faith in all my speeches and workshops.
Sharing the Gospel
As I was building my new Christian website in late 2021, I asked God how I could use my website to share my faith. It took me a while to use a page on my website titled “Brabec Bulletin” to feature my monthly Christian Musings posts. In 2024, I began to more aggressively share my faith, which cost me many subscribers on my mailing list. But this was expected since we’re now living in days when spiritual forces are making it difficult for people to share the good news about Jesus without being rejected or canceled in one form or another. But all Christians believe this verse, which even the children in my Baptist church have memorized:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 NIV).
Jesus always knew that he would have to face the terrors of hell, not just as one man dying and going to hell, but as one man carrying the weight of all the sins of mankind on his shoulders. When He was dying on the cross and said “It is finished,” He meant that He had fulfilled his mission by dying for our sins and suffering the pains of hell so we would never have to experience them ourselves. The only price God asks in return is that we acknowledge Him for what He did for us, and receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior.
May God bless you and yours this Easter and always.
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First published as Barbara’s “Personal Musings About Life” on April 2, 2025.
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