Interview with Sarah Ott, Part 1
This is the first of three Tree Thoughts, (TT) chats with Sarah Ott of Establish Her.
TT: I’d like to begin by saying how wonderful it is to see the Lord in your words and to confirm what He is working in you. It’s a vital message!
Sarah: Thank you so much! The Lord truly has downloaded content into me through many seasons of need in my life. When He takes everything, He becomes everything. I’m so passionate about this message—the message of needing Him and abiding in Him more than empty activity FOR Him. There is a prepositional shift from FOR to IN and I believe He has raised up voices (including mine) to speak about Colossians 3:3-4 and John 15—that Life is Christ and it is hidden in Him. He abides IN us and we IN Him. I love Him so deeply.
TT: Wonderful! Can you share a bit about what trials you have endured to get to this point and how the pain of those trials worked to create this message?
Sarah: Absolutely. I believe that talks are prepared and messages are born. When I speak, it is not a talk which is prepared. It is a Message that is a lifestyle, a posture, a passion—it is Him—not topical but a Personal Jesus. He births that type of message typically through the valleys of life. I have had many mountain tops throughout my ever continuing journey but those mountain tops are created through the valleys on either side.
TT: I so agree. And I identify with this. How does the Lord meet you in these valleys?
Sarah: Hosea 2:14 is one of my favorite passages where it actually says that He allures us into the wilderness (valley) to speak comfort (kindly upon) our hearts. It is in the valley when the bottom of life drops out—the picture of what should be is not realized and/or the ideals come to a crashing halt. There, He grabs our attention and gains our affection. He speaks so vividly when all the other voices are silent. John 10:5 says that His sheep hear His voice and do not listen to that of a stranger. Without the brokenness of life, there is too much ease of self-voice, self-success, self-religion, etc. It’s all idolatry really. God is jealous and will stop at nothing to draw us into a deeper dynamic walk with Him. He will have no other gods beside him.
TT: Can you describe a particular experience you’ve had with this?
Sarah: To answer which trial specifically, I need to give a little background on my life story.
I have always loved LOVE. I love the wonder and whimsy of life expressed through relationships. This has been very visible to me since I was a little girl. I dressed up as a bride for every Halloween I can remember, except for Pocahontas and Cleopatra every now and then. I saw a beautiful marriage displayed in my parents. I grew up in an incredible and optimistic home with a Godly family that from the get-go knew Christ as life and not as religion. Both my parents: a preacher, business-genius dad, turned ways-of-Jesus discipler of men and a “blonde” (in every way: pure and gullible) spunky Delta flight attendant, with an eye for color, depth and humor in all things mom, rubbed off on me in so many ways. They are confidants, best friends and partners in life. My younger brother (now a tall 6’4”) and I were taught by encouragement and modeling to pray with fervency for all things are possible, to dream without limits, to envision and create in His name for His glory, to steward, to allow Him to use the gifts He endowed and to love others different and similar to me all around the world.
The gift of world travel and the meeting of people gave me a maturity at a young age and the ability to SEE life—really see it, celebrate it and give it away to others. I love doing life with people who LOVE life, adventure and hope! I have always been a Pollyanna and a dreamer at heart, knowing that God had called me, put His fingerprints on me at age seven and then His heavy hand at age sixteen. I had always been in front of people one way or another but the Message began to form on the fringes then. I have been pursued by many my whole life, things came easy, beauty came easy, intellect, men, love, etc. It came easy which isn’t a fault, just a platform to create the perfect storm. I was the girl who thought she deserved love on a silver platter.
The avid writer I am burst on the scene at age sixteen on the fields of Shelby Farms, Tennessee, at an event in 2000 called Passion Oneday. I wrote that day without much understanding, “God, my life is leverageable. It is Yours. Fill me up and pour me out. My love story will be the hinge on which my ministry will turn.”
God truly spoke into my heart that day. He wrote His Word on me then and began this deep growing hunger to communicate. I have always been in front of people one way or another but the Message began to form just on the fringes then.
Five years later I learned what that would truly mean.
In 2004, “my list” walked into my life. He was everything. Everything I’d prayed for, thought about, drooled over, and expected. He was a very wealthy and a bit older man from a prominent family. He had a cool career. He was a Christian; he knew God but (at least then) I couldn’t say whether he loved God. You can’t really love God until you know your need of Him. True dependence on Him is such a place of love and surrender. You don’t choose that. God brings you to a death of sorts to invite you into such a place. He’d never had that. He’d never heard the word, “no.” He’d had an easy life on a 24 carat gold platter. God was an addition to that life. Little did I know that Christ would use this man as a mirror for me.
We were like that show The Bachelorette in more ways than one. Image, lavish living, budding friendship, passion, etc. It was all there and a prayer every now and then for God to bless OUR way, OUR idea, OUR plan. But, of course, ALL FOR HIS GLORY. We were so far off—our mouths giving words of worship and our hearts so distant.
On our 8th date, he proposed. I hesitated but thought, Of course this has to be it. God would not have brought me this far to have this not end in marriage.
I had the huge carat ring, multiple mansions, a Christian man, a handsome man, in-laws whom adored me, the world at my fingertips, fame, etc. But I was so alone. So empty. So vacant. I was a believer! I was not living in sin. I was living in mediocrity—living with Jesus as an accessory—an addition—not at the CENTER, the Source!!
I had fears already rise up in me but swept them under a big rug in my heart for the sake of “love.” You see, I was young but many of my friends had married and I thought it was my turn, my dream, my plan. It was time for it to all unfold.
The Lord says that we make our plans but He directs our steps. The Lord had a very different plan for me with steps I would never have chosen but I would never go back or change those steps.
I am forever grateful to the godly pastor who was going to marry us. He gave me wisdom and protection when he permitted me in our counseling sessions to be honest about this chasm I felt with my fiancé—a spiritual one. I knew he was not fully alive in Jesus. I had tasted that and I wanted that with him but he’d never been broken. I’d tasted brokenness in small forms throughout my 22 years but this was the kicker—this was my Isaac—marriage.
God knew I would not and could not relinquish. I began to have fear yet knowing that “perfect love casts out fear.”
God was jealous for me then and knew that my life and love story WOULD INDEED BE THE HINGE but not my way, my time, my will. I had to be broken of pride, materialism, the God-addition syndrome and brought by His loving hand to that place of death to self, a dream and marriage.
The Lord spoke vividly all the while but especially on a particular day—the day we postponed our massive wedding. I ran up to my wing of a huge house and into my closet. I couldn’t get low enough before the Lord.
