SANCTUARY 12:2

If you know me, you know I'm a planner. I love knowing what to expect, what to anticipate, and being able to prepare for what's to come. With life, I've learned this is not always the most practical approach, because things don't always go as we plan. One of the biggest life lessons God has consistently taught me over the years is that His ways are so much higher than ours, and He is always, always faithful. When we trust Him enough to release our will to His, we can rest in the peach He offers, knowing that His plans for us are good. 

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Growing up, I was always creative and imaginative. I loved to create characters and write stories, come up with imaginary realities (complete with my imaginary husband, Jimmin, and my pretend, good old bulldog, Jack), write and act out short plays with my friends, and play around with my dad's camera. I also loved getting to know people and interacting with young kids. From an early age, I knew I was a creative people person. 

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In high school, I began to feel the pressure of the future and soon felt the weight of all the "future questions" on my shoulders: What do you wanna be when you grow up? What are your plans after high school? Where are you going to college? What's your major gonna be? My little planning heart quickly grew weary, and I frequently found myself stressing about the future. 

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My senior year of high school found me still not knowing what I wanted to do after high school. I finally settled on going to Bluffton University to major in English, because at the time, that made the most sense. A lot of people in my family had gone to Bluffton, and I always enjoyed my English classes, so I thought, why not? 

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To appease my parents, I decided to at least visit one other school over spring break of my senior year. I went with them to Mount Vernon Nazarene University. The campus was pretty, the people were nice, but, as I told a friend who I ran into on campus, I was just visiting to check it out. I was set on going to Bluffton. I'd won a scholarship competition and was all set to attend. But despite the plans I had made to attend Bluffton and study English, my heart still hadn't felt the peace I was longing for regarding my future. But as I continued my tour of MVNU, God began to work in my stubborn, anxious heart. I began to open up to the possibility, thinking to myself that this place is surprisingly felt kind of like home. These thoughts climaxed when our tour guide, while we waited to meet with a professor, shared with me a bit of her story. She told me how she'd been all set to go to another school; she was going to play soccer and had plans to room with her friend; it was all lined up and ready to go. Then she visited MVNU, and she just sensed this was where she was supposed to be. I resonated so deeply with those words; I was feeling the exact same thing! 

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Our tour ended, and I walked back toward the Admissions building with my parents. We stopped, and they asked me what I thought of the school. Their eyes went wide with my reply; "I love this place. I have to come here!" What I didn't know was they my parents had always felt like this school would be a perfect fit for me, but they knew if they pushed their option, I'd stubbornly want to decide for myself and go elsewhere. They knew I needed to experience it and see for myself what a good fit it could be. I also hadn't known that they's had their friends praying that God would show me where He wanted me to be, that this campus visit would open my eyes to His plan for me. And that it did. In that single moment, the realization of answered prayers and God's working hand in all of this washed over me, and there it was--the peace I'd long been missing. I felt so sure and confident that I was right where God wanted me to be. It was a peach I had never known so strongly before. 

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So I attended Mount Vernon Nazarene University with a major in Communications (which was a much better fit for me than English) and a minor in Children's ministry. My time at MVNU helped shape who I am; I grew during my years there and began to learn more about myself. My roommate and I had many good, challenging conversations. During one of them, she asked me what my dreams were. I gave her a blank stare. She was the dreamer. I still didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up, let alone any big dreams for my life. This conversation was a turning point for me; I was now determined to have dreams, like my roommate did. For a while, I tried to piggy-back off the dreams of others, hoping I could just accept them as my own, but that didn't work. In time, I began to better understand my strengths and passions and develop them into my own dreams. 

 

I recognized that my passions had been there all along--not much had changed since my childhood--but they were so obvious I'd stumbled right over them. I still had a heart for people, for creating and developing, for seeing the potential in both people and circumstances. I soon meshed all these together and recognized that my heart beat for community. While I still didn't know exactly what career I wanted to pursue, I knew I wanted to work with people and build community, preferably in the area where I grew up. 

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After I graduated from college, I returned to Holmes County, got married to my longtime boyfriend, and continued to job search. I grew discouraged as I sent in applications and never heard back. I finally got conected with Bruce and Jocelyn at Toward the Goal Ministries, and upon hearing more about their ministry over lunch one day, I immediately knew we shared the same passions for community. Around the same time, I started getting responses from a couple other organizations, inclusing a job offer for a postition that would have been more stable and predictable. But again, God made clear the path that He had for me, and boosted my faith once more. I felt the same kind of peace I'd known at the end of my college visit at MVNU; I knew without a doubt that Toward the Goal was where I was supposed to be. 

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Since then, God has been so faithful to provide as I've worked as a community missionary--raising support to serve the community I grew up in and fervently love. My time at TTG has taught me that I'd previously been focused on the wrong question. During those formational years in high school and college, I'd been so weighed down by the question, What do you want to do? When the question I should have been asking myself was, Who do you want to become? 

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This shift of focus has opened endless doors of possibility, and i now see myself as a visionary dreamer, with lots of big ideas for how I'd love to be used by God. When my identity is rooted securely in Christ, and I release my plans to His ways, I am free and available for Him to use me and all my strengths and passions. I've also learned that understanding my passions helps me live out my purpose of making Christ known and carrying His fragrance with me wherever I go. Even if I don't have one clear, specific career for the next 30 years. I know that God can use my passion for walking with people regardless of where I am in and what ways He chooses to use me. 

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One of my favorite verses through many seasons of life has been Isaiah 55:8-9:

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For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. 

 

Even through times of discouragement and anxiety, I could hold onto the truth that no matter how I try to plan and work things out on my own, God's ways are higher and greater and more fulfilling than I could ever imagine; with His plans come purpose and peace.