As a recent college graduate with no clear path, I have all too often been asking God what His plan is for me. Where do I, a 23 year old blonde from Massachusetts, fit in this world? This uncertainty has followed me for the entirety of my adult life (all 5 long, gruesome years of it) and I regret to inform you that I still have not found a definitive answer. But while I was dragging myself along this cat and mouse race, relentlessly searching for this answer, God was watching me and shaking His head, all the while drawing my heart in a direction I could have never expected.
I’ve always loved missions. Acts of service is my love language, I never found more joy than from church mission trips and my overly empathetic heart often gets me in trouble. Until recently, however, I never considered mission work to be a present part of my life; it was in the past and was the basis for my fondest memories. When I allowed myself to sit in the back seat and let Jesus take the wheel (Carrie Underwood reference unintentional), however, my eyes and heart were open to see this God-given gift that I’d avoided for so long. Through sitting and stillness and simply letting God speak to me in a way I hadn’t allowed Him to before, applying for the World Race suddenly made decisions seem so simple.
As I begin to prepare my finances, body, heart and soul for this trip of a lifetime, I can’t say I’ll be leaving the country with all the answers I’ve spent years looking for. And I can’t say that I’ll come back having miraculously discovered my lifelong plan. What I can say, however, is that God is calling me to leave everything I know behind for 11 months to follow His Voice. And while I am entering this journey with the most uncertainty I’ve faced, I have never been so certain of where God wants me.
“However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me – the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.” -Acts 20:24
