As I promised in my last blog, I wanted to share what I feel God calling me to after the Race and how He has shown His glory in the process of revealing that calling to me!
I have always been a planner. Since I was in 10th grade in high school, I have had my entire life planned out. I was going to finish high school, attended college, fast track through Pharmacy School, and then live a comfortable life with my husband and kids, staying close enough to home to where I could still visit my parents and my sisters. I wanted to work as a Pharmaceutical Researcher at first, and then move to working in Retail Pharmacy when I decided to have kids so I could be home with them more often. I wanted a nice house on a big piece of land where my family could have space and my kids could have a big yard to play in. I intended to occasionally take part in short-term Christian Medical Mission Trips to other countries as I found the time.
Yepp, I had it all figured out. I had crossed my t’s and dotted my i’s.
Then God rocked my world.
Last March He called me to let go of my plans completely and serve on his mission field for 9 months on the World Race. He called me to start saying ‘Yes’ to Him no matter what that meant. Since I started unconditionally saying ‘Yes’ to God, my life has been nothing short of an adventure every day!
Now, less than a year later, I am sitting in Malawi, listening to the African rain and the laughter of children playing in it, thinking about how silly I was to think that my plans for my life could ever be greater than the plans of my Creator. If it were up to me, I would be sitting in class studying about Mammalian Physiology. Yepp, God’s plan totally beat mine to the dust!
At our last few days in El Salvador, one of my squad leaders, Katie, shared with us about what it looks like to allow God to change your passions to match what He is calling you to do. God had already given me stern instruction during month one of my Race to stop seeking my future and to only seek Him wholeheartedly. But at the end of month three, He put it on my heart to give Him control of my passions and to pray for Him to use them and change them if necessary to prepare me for whatever season He would lead me to next. Honestly, letting God have complete reign over my passions was a lot harder than it sounds. It required letting God have the intimate part of me that brought me joy, that drove my life pursuits.
So I prepared my heart for anywhere He would call me. I had finally grown to trust God enough that if He called me to walk away from college, my scholarship, my comfortable life in Alabama, I was willing to do it, no matter how hard it would be. I was willing and ready to say yes to anything God threw at me. Another year on the mission field? You got it God! Moving somewhere I had never dreamed of? Sure, let’s go! Working in ministry full-time in the states? Sign me up, Lord! You say the word and I will say yes. My heart was ready for what I considered would be the most daring and risky callings of them all.
Then God threw me the biggest curve ball He could throw.
It was the last week of 2015 when I felt God for the second time in my life speak a calling to my heart. He said, “I need you to go and be a light where you were once in darkness.”
I immediately understood.
For those of you who don’t know my testimony (which is probably most of you) I have grown up my entire life believing in Jesus. I would try to obey what God wanted, would go through times of spiritual highs, and then in my humanness would utterly fail. I couldn’t understand why following Jesus was so hard, almost unnatural. My freshman year of college was no different, I would occasionally crack open a devotional when life got hard or I had nowhere else to turn. But ultimately, I was living life entirely for myself, what I wanted, what I thought I needed, living according to my own desires. God’s plan or what He wanted was no where on my radar. And let me tell you, selfish living is one of the darkest places you could ever live. All may look wonderful and good and like you have it all together on the outside. But on the inside, there is always a hole that will be yearning for more, more, more, no matter what or who or how much you try to fill it with. That was me.
Thankfully, my sophomore year of college was the year that I finally found what I was missing, I finally found the only thing that could ever fill the hole I was desperately trying to fill – a genuine relationship with Jesus. I was missing the mark and trying all my life to adhere to rules and laws and a to-do list of Christianity- I had tried to succeed with religion and failed.
Then by the unfailing grace of God, Jesus brought me to light and swept me off my feet.
Now….here he is. “Go be a light where you were once in darkness.”
He was calling me to go right back to the exact place I was before the Race. He was calling me back to Auburn, Alabama, to go back to school and return back to the place I was before.
But this time, He wanted me to be a light in the darkness.
While I was preparing myself for adventure and leaving behind comfort and saying ‘yes’ to the ultimate test of faith…I realized that returning back to where I was before would, in reality, be the greatest test of my faith that there could be. This was truly the riskiest place God could call me to go.
God is calling me to go back to the same place where I was once living in complete darkness, the darkness I was eagerly escaping from after God called me away to the Race, and He wants me to show His people there how radically His love has changed me and offer that the same thing could happen for them too. He was calling me to test my faith, to truly see the strength that I have in Christ alone, to stand firm in the woman of God that He has led me to be during my time on the field.
I also knew that He wasn’t calling me just to go back, finish my classes, attend church and small groups, get my degree and go. All of those are good, but I know He is leading me to Auburn to pursue ministries to His people, to the student’s of a college town. He showed me ministries that He wanted me to pursue, putting on my heart that He wanted me to “not wait for the lost to come to you, but go out and seek the lost where they are.”
This is terrifying. This requires me to venture into places where no good little church missionary girl should go. He put places on my heart- like my work place and my classes – where I would have to return to as a new Whitney. But He is beginning to give me a passion for ministries in the bars and the campus parties and the downtown area of a college town. He is giving me a heart to seek out the lamb who have strayed away and the gold coins who have been lost.
What crazy is that despite how terrified I am of being strong in the places where I was once dark and of what people will think of the Christian girl venturing to these place……God has also bloomed a flower of excitement in my heart.
He is changing my passions.
I can’t fully put into words the way I am feeling about this calling. Going right back to my comfortable normal life may not seem like a significant calling to some of you. But to me, it is the most uncomfortable, daring and risky adventure God could call me to right now. It is the farthest thing outside of my comfort zone. But I have faith in the Lord. I trust that I can do anything if I am depending on His strength and not my own. I know that He will provide all that I need.
And I have complete faith that He won’t lead me where He doesn’t go.
So I want to encourage you, to never stop saying Yes to God, even when He calls you to the craziest things. Never stop following His plan, no matter how scary it may seem. Never allow anyone to tell you that your extraordinary calling is anything short of just that – extraordinary. Keep fighting the good fight, finish your race, and keep the faith.
Please keep me in your prayers as God continues to prepare me and work on my heart during these next few months. Also, please keep our host family, host church, and our community here in Malawi in your prayers! You all are great! May God Bless you and lead you on a new adventure with Him every day!
