We’re five months out from departure and I’m scared.
I know without the shadow of a doubt God has called me to this trip, called me to raise up the broken and to share His story. I don’t think I’ve ever known anything so certainly in my life.
Did I ever tell you about the one time I came back to Kansas ? It’s a good reminder for me of God’s faithfulness and His promise to always provide for me.
End of the summer last year, I knew I was leaving Ann Arbor. I’d known for a while. I didn’t know where I was going – until I prayed with my friend Jenna about it at lunch one day and I finally felt with my heart that I knew what I would do and where I would go – back to school to get my graduate degree.
After a few months of praying on it and getting things set up for a life on the other side of the country, I was scared but SO EXCITED. Finally, making steps to further my education – as well as finding and stepping out on a path that would begin my work with furthering God’s kingdom.
And then I found out my grandma was sick. There are so many different factors that played into my confusion and sudden emotional rift for where my next season would take me. I’d missed so much being abroad and getting caught up in college and moving away from home.
So one day we had church – it was one of the first beautiful Sundays and we happened to get locked out of the Pastor’s house because most of the plant was away on a trip to Tijuana. So we went to the back yard and had service and worship and it was beautiful. The weather, the atmosphere, His presence – and yet I was still feeling unrest.
When we broke off to pray separately while Neal and Jaret lead another few worship songs, I sat in the grass with my head in my hands and begged, prayed for clarity. I cried “anything, God, just show me where I’m meant to be.”
In the middle of this plea, my friend Terese comes up to me to talk to me, saying she has words for me and felt like the Holy Spirit had a message for me and an image. I’m thinking to myself “I’m trying to be enlightened here” but went ahead and opened up.
She went on to pour into me, washing away all of my insecurities. Told me it was going to be a season of harvest and rebirth and so many more things that spoke into and broke me. Then she started talking about this image she had.
It was about me in a field of sunflowers.
The state flower of Kansas is a sunflower.
My face had to have paled and flushed within a split second because in that moment I was so overwhelmed. Grateful for an answer, shocked at one so blatant, nervous for my return and peaceful in my path. Even down to every little detail with transportation changing at the last second, God came through.
So while I wait in agony, struggling to do fundraising on top of what feels like and is often close to 70 hours of work a week, I remember this promise that God delivered on when I showed Him I was all in. And while I’ll have moments, questioning my place in His plan for me, I will never doubt that He is Sovereign, He loves me and He has chosen me to move in a big way in His world.
#praise #11n11
