My first day at Adventures was my best friend’s birthday, back at Georgia Southern. It was going to be the first time since we had met we’d be apart for her birthday (since our freshman year, 3 years). Man, how that was tough. I wanted to be there. I wanted to be with all my friends, the community that I had lived in and been a part of for the past 4 years.
It hit me a few times in this transition that I was going to be gone from that community for what was supposed to be the last semester of college. I would be gone from the 519 Pitt-Moore house, the ministries, the school, the people in my church who had changed my life. There were times when I would cry and ask God how I was going to make it. I would think about all the things I was going to miss out on. I would look back on my sweet memories and think how fast time had flown by.
This is Candyn and me, best friend from Southern who I was speaking of above. Please do enjoy the photo. We always make double chin faces together, as you can see I have had lots of practice.
I did not see what was coming for me. I prayed for community, I prayed for friends, for things to do on the weekends. I prayed for my time at home with my parents and that transition to moving back home for the semester. I prayed for God to use me, to challenge me, to grow me. I prayed I would learn things I hadn’t before, that God would reveal himself to me in totally different and news ways. I trusted the Lord through it. I knew he would provide whether it was the first week back home or a month or even a year.
It was the first week, he showed up. He gave me friends. I praise him for that. It was within my first week of the internship God started to speak to me about my future. I had this really awesome plan in my head. I thought I was going to do this internship, find my husband, find a career, and be able to settle down soon after graduation. Then it dawned on me… I enjoyed what I was doing so much at Adventures, but it was a nonprofit. If that was to be my career, how was I going to make money? And that’s where it started. Of course working at a mission’s organization, missions would begin to creep up inside of me.
The first week of this internship, do you hear that? The first week…. God spoke to me. He challenged me, he stretched me. These were things I had prayed for a only a few weeks, months before. I had no idea it was going to be this soon. He began to tell me that the plan I had for myself was not his plan he had for me. The career, husband soon after my internship, money, this was not for me right now. This was not what he wanted, it was missions.
Oh, I didn’t like what he had to say. I did not want to give him my future. I could not give him my future, at that moment. He started to talk with me about The World Race; being gone for a year, saying yes to his future. I said “no!”
I started off slow and shared with my boss at Adventures, “Okay, I didn’t want to tell you this, but I think the Lord is calling me to The World Race. However, I am not going to pray about it because I don’t want to go.” That same day a friend from Southern asks me, “are you thinking about missions yet?” I was wrestling with the Lord. I didn’t want to know his plan for me; I didn’t want to give him my future. Mine plan was perfectly fine, it was comfortable, and it was safe.
Just to fast forward for you, I now understand and know why I am where I am today. I understand why I am away, why I am not at Georgia Southern this semester. Sometimes it hurts me to think about the people who don’t know the Lord and can’t be reassured of this like I can, I pray for them.
