WHO AM I??
A question that has plagued the thoughts of the greatest of
intellects and common folks alike. But
without going too deep for this quick snipit of who I am, I will state who
others have called me in the past. Due
namely to my physical characteristics, I had a 12 year old girl call me Mr.
Tumnus from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. While at another time I have been called a
leprechaun or even better yet a Hobbit to which I find no demeaning value to at
all. And again, while living in Kingston
Jamaica, I had been called Rasta-man by the children at the Salvation Army
Compound and yet my personal favorite may have been Jesus by the random
strangers I passed on a daily basis.
(This too was probably due to my white skin, long hair and beard. But I too often took it to mean that they saw
Jesus in me…always looking to the positive)
Nonetheless, I am not defined by the words other say about me
nor am I defined by the words I say about myself but rather I am defined by who
Christ says I am. Jesus, the Word, calls
me son. He calls me heir and co-heir
with Him. He tells me that I am forgiven
and that I am saved by His grace alone through faith and not by works. As He has so graciously worked in me with
great patience over the years, I have learned to respond to His calling by
calling Him Lord, Savior, Abba Daddy, Jehova, Mighty Warrior, Holy and
Beautiful One.
I had graduated from Indiana Wesleyan University, a fantastic
Christian university, with a bachelors degree in Youth Ministry in the Spring
of 2007. Upon graduating, I felt like I
was ready to take on the World. After
countless hours of class room with wonderful professors and chapel 3 times a
week for 4 years I felt more than competent to take on the problems of the
world, at least until I began to be in the world. 3 years later and more times than I care to
count packing up my car and moving to the next job, I found myself at a place
of getting real with God. I started
seeking His will for my life and asking what He wanted for me. I had known the answer for a while but didn’t like it so I ran from it.
One late night, I had found myself walking alone downtown
having a fit with God that there was certainly more to life than what I was
experiencing at the time. That’s when
the answer of missions smacked me right in the face. At the time I still was not a big fan of the
idea but was tired of running. So fast
forward 3 years from that point, and you’ll reach the present where I have done
the World Race in Oct 2010 with S squad, then alumni squad lead C squad Jan
2012, then was Project Director for Adventures Youth in Jamaica for the summer of 12′ and now am joining staff with Adventures In Missions to be the field support
for those going on the World Race. As I
said before, I learned a great deal during my time at IWU and am ever so grateful
for those years but it hasn’t been until the last 3 years that I truly began to
believe wholeheartedly in what I had been taught and to walk it out.
I believe that the more of who I am, is the more of Christ I
am because He created me specifically in His image with the personality and
passions and even the oddities I have.
And I believe that the more of who I am today is more like Christ than I
ever was before and my prayer would be that the who I am today is only a mere
shadow of who I am in the future with Christ.
