Hello! My name is Mallory. But you can call me Mal.
If I may, I’d like to tell you a story. It’s the story of how God has completely shaken up my life, and how the last two years of it have been wilder, harder, and more beautiful than anything I ever could’ve imagined. But before I begin, there’s something I’d like to make abundantly clear: there is absolutely nothing special about me. I am twenty years old and I have never been to college. My nail polish is almost always chipped. I failed Anatomy in high school. My first name literally means “ill-omened.” I eat more ice cream, watch more Disney movies, and read more Harry Potter than is socially acceptable for my age. There is absolutely nothing special about me. But there is something so spectacularly special about my God.
So, let’s get to the story…ready for it?
In June of 2015, I graduated high school and begrudgingly obeyed both the Lord’s and my family’s promptings to (what felt like at the time) uproot my entire life of eighteen years in Louisville, Kentucky, and move to Memphis, Tennessee to somehow begin a new one. I struggled for many months with this change. I couldn’t see or understand what God was doing, and how He was transforming and preparing my heart for what He had in store down the road. Though I had known the Lord my whole life, and began an intimate relationship with Jesus years before, my primary feeling for months during this time was not trust in my Savior. I had no direction, only feelings of depression, anxiety, and anger. I began to doubt my purpose and worth. I convinced myself I could never be of use for the Kingdom, and sank deeper and deeper until my identity was no longer in Christ, but instead in my own feelings of self-hate.
In March of 2016, I began cosmetology school and finally had something to work towards and a reason to get out of bed everyday. The Lord used this next year to bless me immensely in finally accepting my new life in Memphis, and beginning to seek out where and how He desired to use me, something I hadn’t done in much too long. Suddenly, I found myself on an established and clear path. I planned to finish school and graduate in April 2017, get my cosmetology license, and begin working in a salon all before my twentieth birthday. Everything fit perfectly. But if I’ve learned anything as a believer it’s that we shouldn’t make plans on our own terms. I should’ve known!
In November of 2016, I went to see the movie Moana. (We all knew my story would involve Disney somehow. Stay with me, this is where it gets good.) I watched this movie about a girl feeling called to the ocean, to leave her family, friends, and entire life behind for an epic voyage to save her people. She spends the next ninety minutes chasing this calling, this idea that seems impossible and unattainable, only to realize in a perfectly Disney-orchestrated, brilliant moment of sheer feminism and self-discovery, that “the call isn’t out there at all, it’s inside [of her].” I went home after with those words ringing in my ears. The Lord filled me, body, mind, and spirit that night with an insane belief that He was asking me to bring my life to a screeching halt and go serve in Jamaica for ten weeks of the summer instead of beginning my career as a hair stylist. I asked Him probably about a thousand times, “Me? Do you have the right person? Are you sure?!” before I could even believe what He was doing. But I knew I couldn’t deny or ignore it. I fell in love with Jesus the very first time I felt Him in my bones. And since then, my biggest dream and desire for my life has been for Him to use me to further His kingdom. This calling on my heart to intern for American-Caribbean Experience in Jamaica wasn’t some abstract, random idea that just occurred to me all of a sudden. It wasn’t out there at all, it was inside me all along. (See what I did there!!) This was my dream, and He chose ME of all people. That still gives me goosebumps.
Before I knew it, God made this crazy internship happen. He provided the financial means, while I scrambled to summon the courage to believe I could really do it. And against all odds, I somehow found myself boarding a plane to Jamaica on June 1st, 2017, having what I would consider now, absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into. For five months leading up to this flight, the summer ahead was all I worked towards, thought about, and talked to God about. I felt Him time and time again speaking to my heart to simply go, to not worry about anything beyond my return date home. This was something I was particularly nervous about. As someone with a tremendous amount of anxiety in my everyday life, how was I supposed to just forget all of it and not worry about the future for two and a half months? Spoiler alert: solely by the grace of God, that’s how. I asked Him every day to help me remain present over the course of the summer, and He delivered.
At the beginning of my time in Jamaica, I prayed a very dangerous prayer: I asked God to use this season to break me. I don’t consider my faith as weak before then, but I felt the Lord telling me to test myself, and I can’t explain why. Still, I surrendered to it and asked God to use this time to show me my own heart, to completely strip me down to my core so He could begin to rebuild me as the person He’s asked me to be. And once again, no surprise, He did.
Returning back home to my life in the States was particularly difficult for me. In obedience to Him, I had no plans, no next step in place, trusting instead that He would provide answers when I truly needed them. I felt a change in myself building all summer, but I couldn’t quite see it immediately upon returning home. I was so busy looking for one big change for many weeks that I couldn’t see that He had instead changed everything. My life at home looked almost exactly the same as when I had left it. But I wasn’t the same. In fact, I felt like a completely different person, so much so that I no longer fit into the established path I had been on anymore. I kept looking to God asking why He brought me back to my exact same life as before the summer when I thought all along He had been preparing me for something new. I’ll admit there was a part of me that was angry. I couldn’t understand how or where He could use me next when I was no longer content in the path my life had been on. And then, I felt the Lord place The World Race on my heart.
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26
When I look back on this crazy journey the last few years of my life have been compared to my life now, I so clearly see the Lord’s hand at work. I see a heart of flesh He has worked tirelessly to instill in me. I’ve had a heart for missions since my first mission trip and first time out of the country in 2013. But the compassion I’ve felt after seeing poverty in a third world country with my own eyes, and seeing need in the world, still never changed the way I lived my own life. I spent seventy-five days this summer trying to abandon my own comfort zones and cultural norms, and found myself, to be honest, miserable in my own country upon returning home. I couldn’t believe how much I took for granted and how safe my life at home was. My heart and mind became overwhelmed with the belief that this wasn’t it, that God isn’t done with me yet. He replaced my heart of stone with a heart of flesh, and I believe He’s asking me to use it.
A few weeks ago, I applied and was accepted to The World Race through Adventures in Missions, and will be leaving in October 2018 to serve for eleven months in Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Vietnam, Cambodia, Albania, Serbia, Romania, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Rwanda! Once again, there is absolutely nothing special about me. I am quite literally just a girl from Kentucky by way of Tennessee. But there is something so spectacularly special about my God, and I am beyond so-crazy-can’t-contain-myself thankful to be His kingdom worker. If I have learned anything from my time here on earth thus far, it’s that as a follower of Christ, I have so much more power than I even realize in my identity in Him. He has more faith in me than I could ever have in myself, which is what gives me confidence to answer “here I am!” when He is asking me to go.
For the next eleven months of preparation and fundraising, as well as throughout my time on the field, I will be updating this blog. The countdown to my launch date is on, and I would be thrilled if you would follow me along on this adventure! I cannot and will not get there alone, so, if you’re reading this, I’m asking for your support, prayerfully first and foremost, as well as financially. I am beyond ready to get this process started!
