A wise man once said, “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” This verse, found in Proverbs 16, has been ringing in my head recently as God has been directing me in ways that I never thought imaginable.
At the beginning of 2017, I was content with where I was at in life and extremely joyful. God was at work, the gospel was being revealed in my life, and that is all that mattered. At least, that was all that truly mattered. However, the desire for companionship, to eventually be a wife and raise a family to love the Lord, has always been deeply rooted in my heart. That was my plan,that was my life purpose, or at least, that is what I kept being told. I’ve noticed it has seemingly become a theme in my generation (or at least in my community), that once you hit your twenties, it is time to be looking for a spouse. Not only has this hit hard as I watch several of my friends and family members my age or younger getting engaged and married, but the blow has been driven deeper by the way I am treated for not even remotely being close to marriage. I often hear phrases like, “you do want to get married right?”, or “poor Beth, we’ll find you someone.”
Yes, I do want to get married eventually, yes, I do want a family someday, but why should my eventually be consuming my here and now?
Yet, that is exactly what the eventually has done…consume me.
Since the end of high school, I have been swallowed in wrong relationships where I have at times felt trapped, betrayed, spiritually dead, and flat out bitter toward the world around me. I have been told that I am “the kind of girl a guy eventually wants to settle down with, but not the kind to have fun with.” Another guy told me that physically I was not attractive enough. My feelings have been disregarded and emotionally I have been bruised. I had let sin creep its way in and being naïve, I made some really dumb decisions that took me to a place of feeling entrapped in a life that I did not want. As the weight of sins grip on my heart began tearing me apart piece by piece, I spent countless nights crying out to God hoping He would hear me and provide a way of escape. The anger, the bitterness, and the shame left me completely and utterly destroyed. I was in a place of ruins.
But God was in those broken places. In fact, it’s in the ruins that he does His best work. After all, “He gives grace to the humble,” and in those moments I had nothing left to feed my pride. I was unworthy, yet he pursued me. I was in ashes, yet he saw beauty. He showed me His mercy, and His forgiveness is sweet. Forgiveness of myself and of those who had hurt me created in me a freedom and peace beyond comprehension. I was free…I am free.
And so 2017 began! God, in His amazing grace, was in full pursuit of my heart despite all the baggage I was laying down at His feet. Nearing the end of 2017, however, I had my final breaking point when yet another guy told me I was a “good girl” with a “pure heart”, but the sparks weren’t there and he could not see a future with me.
I was done…numb to it all.
What was wrong with me? Why did I keep making bad decisions…making dumb mistakes and choosing one bad relationship after another? Why haven’t I learned my lesson? What am I doing wrong? Is it all my fault? Am I really that undesirable? That unlovable? That unattractive? Lord, why does this same thing keep happening to me?
So many questions and lies swarmed in my head…I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t handle being hurt once again. I was done, but it was then I began to realize that God was just getting started.
About six months ago, I had a friend who had mentioned this thing called the World Race to me. She told me it was this crazy eleven month long mission trip that she could totally see me involved in. I looked it up briefly and thought …
there is no way I could ever do that! Leave everything and everyone I know for almost a year, live a simple life out of a single backpack, and raise thousands of dollars to provide! It was insane and she thought waaay too highly of me to think I could ever handle something like that. Absolutely not!
I had not seen her much or talked to her much after that until the week the last relationship had ended. I was randomly getting back in contact with her as she has six kids and she needed some help in the mornings. As I went to help, the World Race was in the back of my mind throughout the week.
It just does not fit into my future plans…my eventually…What I want for my life…
…or so I thought. But, as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are God’s thoughts higher than mine!
There is a song that says, “You have called me higher, you have called me deeper, and I will go where you will lead me, Lord.” As I sat there, thinking and praying through everything, the pain, the whys and the why nots of my past; God opened up the eyes of my heart to the crazy truth that maybe he is calling me higher. He began to reveal to me that for the longest time I have been looking in the wrong place to fulfill my “eventual calling”. I was looking to the wrong people for satisfaction. True satisfaction only comes from Him and in His love. My true life purpose is to bring praise and glory to my Savior with all of me no matter what stage of life I am in. That is the real plan. That is the ultimate life goal to strive toward.
So, the World Race continued to stick with me no matter how hard I tried pushing it away.
Finally, I decided to get my parents opinion on this insane missions trip I had been researching into. Of course, mom and dad are going to think it is a horrible idea…dangerous and definitely not where I should be. I mean, God placed my parents in my life to give me wisdom and advice so what they say I should definitely listen to. There is no way my protective detective of a dad is going to go for this.
A little while later, my dad starts to google. I really expected him to join me in my initial thoughts…but then…he didn’t.
Wait…what?
So I prayed about it some more, and here I am, starting my journey with Adventures in Missions as a World Racer. It is terrifying, extremely exciting, and I couldn’t feel more passionate about this decision that God has laid on my heart. My driving life verse is 2 Timothy 1:7. “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but one of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” God has established my steps to go to a place in life that I never would have chosen on my own. I am in awe of the fact that I get the opportunity to share what the power of Christ has done in my life, to go out and love those who may feel unlovable, and to grow my mind spiritually in ways that I still cannot fathom. God has taken my desires and redirected them to a purpose beyond my wildest dreams and for that, I feel extremely thankful and blessed. God is so good, life is amazing, and I am crazy excited to draw nearer to the Lord on this journey as I surrender the future and continually learn to live fully in the present for Him and Him alone.
“Love is and always was the longing placed inside my heart to know You and be known by You.”
