Where do you even begin with a story such as this? Especially since the story has barely begun. I suppose it all started a little over a year ago. I had decided to leave Utah, where I lived almost my entire life, and move to California. I had had a tumultuous couple of years and I thought that I would find somewhat of a reprieve from all of my decisions and a fresh start. I refused to call it “running away,” and instead used the excuse that I needed “a change of scenery.” I had family in Southern California and had a slight (ok, maybe not so slight) obsession with the ocean. What other reasons did I need, right? So in March of 2013, I packed up my car and moved to sunny SoCal.
As to not bore you, I will attempt to summarize my year in California and spare you all the details. I ended up working for a staffing company in which I was the office coordinator, moved into an apartment with my brother’s girlfriend, and spent as much time as I could on the beach and hanging out with my family. I met an amazing friend with whom I planned to move into a bigger place with, then I was recruited by an investment company to work for better benefits and more money. It seemed to me that everything was going the way that I wanted it to. Yet there was a gnawing feeling inside and I sensed that I was still missing something.
Almost exactly a year after moving there, everything fell apart very suddenly right when I thought that I had everything under my control. Isn’t it funny how that works?
I got laid off from my job, I had adopted a puppy who got sick and needed expensive antibiotics, and my car battery died. Because of my plan of moving into a new house, I had moved out of my apartment and had everything that I owned packed in my car. I was living out of the boxes in my trunk while sleeping in my grandmas spare bedroom. These all took place in a matter of 10 days. Literally.
The one thing that I have not mentioned yet, is that a few weeks earlier my mom talked to me about a mission trip that she read about. It was called The World Race. The more I read and learned about it, the more I felt drawn to it and inclined to apply. I had been struggling with my relationship with God lately, and I felt that every decision I had made in years was all about me and what I wanted to do. So I applied. The application and the interview both occured before the “falling apart.” Part of me felt so led to go on this mission and part of me thought that what I had planned was going just as well.
God pushed the reset button on my life and brought me to my knees. I felt confused and lost, and was suddenly left with nothing that I had previously had planned.
There have been times in my life where I have been on my knees praying for God’s will and direction, but never before like this. I prayed constantly for those few weeks that His guidance would shine through my life and become so apparent to me that there would be no way I could miss it. One day, I recieved a phone call and a single exclamation changed everything. “Girl, you’re going on the race!” I suddenly knew so precisely what God wanted me to do and where He wanted me to go.
Now for 11 months of my life I am committing myself to His will and dedicating myself to His work and ministry. I feel so blessed and am still in awe of God’s crazy (and very necessary) way of getting my attention. Everything fell apart, so that He could make it fall perfectly together. So here’s to an adventure of a lifetime by serving the Lord through helping His world.
“Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all of your ways, acknowledge Him and He shall make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6
